
Glass. 
Book. 



-+/ 



H.F.KIMBALL 
BOOKSELLER 

QUEBEC 




St. PAUL'S, NEW YORK. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE 

BY 

J. M. HARPER, 

The Author of "Our Jeanies." 



DEDICATED 
TO 

SIR JAMES M. LeMOINE, D.C.L., 
Spencer Grange, Quebec. 



A I 



■03 H3 



TBANSFERRED Ff?OM 
BEAQi'NQ ROOM 



^ 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

This is the third of the series of the his- 
torical hrochures which the writer is prepar- 
ing for Canadian readers and those who 
visit us. The success which has attended 
the others, it is to be hoped, will be 
graciously extended to this one also. The 
visitor will find its pages a ready guidance 
while learning the topography of the 
ancient capital, a little bit at a time; and 
the young Canadian may not regret the 
labour required to commit to memory the 
verses that are meant to embody one of the 
most exciting chapters in the history of our 
colonial development and broadening 
loyalty. 



DESCRIPTIVE NOTES. 

It is a far cry, as a Scotsman would say, 
from the seething crowds of Broadway, 
where old St. Paul's has weathered the 
changes of a century or so, to the silent 
crevices of Cape Diamond, which overlooks 
the spacious harbour of Quebec. The rear 
of the sacred edifice, so well known 
to the citizens of New York, is adorned wifh 
a monument which tells us how the remains 
of General Richard Montgomery, who fell 
at Quebec, December 31st, 1775, were deposit- 
ed under its base within the chancel window, 
in the year 1818; while on the scarred flank 
of the rock of Quebec, on its southern side, 
there is to be seen a well-worn inscription, 
also intimating that the said Richard Mont- 
eoraerv met his fate near the foot of the 
precipice on which the Citadel of the ancient 
capital of Canada is built. Those who 
would understand the plan of the siege of 
1775, and the topography of the ground 
encompassed by Montgomery and Arnold, 
would do well to begin their investigations 
at the foot of Cote de Lamontagne, common- 



4 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

ly called Mountain Hill, — -ftrst, by taking a 
drive eastward along Notre Dame and 
Cliamplain Streets as far as Wolfe's Gove, 
and thence upwards and across from St. 
Louis Road to the St. Foye Road as far as 
Holland House, at the head of what is 
known as Sandy Hill; and second, by taking 
a walk along Sault-au-Matelot and Sous- 
le-Cap Streets, ascending the successive 
inclines that lead to the site of Hope Gate, 
and then proceeding from the Battery to the 
foot of Palace Street, On the drive west- 
ward, the points of interest to be taken 
note of en route are: the Church of Notre 
Dame des Victoires; Mountain Hill and 
little Champlain street; the Champlain 
Market House; the buildings around the 
King's Wharf; the scene of the Landslide; 
the buildings on the Allans' Wharf ; the 
Ruisseau St. Denis at Wolfe's Cove; and 
the plaislrs of Wolfesfield and Holland 
Farm. Attention is given to these places 
seriatim in another part of this work. The 
SEime is done for the points of interest in 
the direction to be taken eastward by the 
visitor; these being the buildings in the 
neighbourhood of the Quebec Bank; " the 
Rock of Dog Lane"; the Battery; the Ram- 
parts; the Hotel Dieu; and the building now 
known as Boswell's Brewery, occupying as 
it does, the site of the Intendant's Palace. 
The changes which have taken place in the 
"lay of the streets" since 1775 are best 
understood by locating with some care the 
Cul-de-Sac of Champlain's time, the little 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 5 

bay which has long been filled in, and which 
forms the present site of the Champlain 
Market Place. This inlet, wherein small 
craft used to discharge their cargoes or 
were moored during the winter months, 
extended inwards as far as the line of Little 
Champlain Street, and was bounded on the 
east by the houses of Sous-le-Fort Street, 
and on the west by the King's Wharf. At 
the foot of Sous-le-Fort Street, where stood 
Champlain'^s Habitation, there was an open 
space, in 1775, — the site of the Royal Battery 
of the French regime; and at its head there 
was the old stairway-link between Cote de 
Lamontagne and Little Champlain Street. 
Champlain Street proper had its origin at 
the open waters of the Cul-de-Sac and ran 
along the river front, as a carriage way, 
as far as Pres-de-Ville, which is described 
as being on the further side of the King's 
Wharf past the old King's Forges. There 
can be no doubt therefore that the memorial 
sign-board attached to the side of the crevice, 
leading from the enclosure of the Allan's 
Wharf to the Citadel, indicates the exact 
site of the barricade attacked by Mont- 
gomery. Beyond Pres-de-Ville there extend- 
ed a footpath round Cape Diamond, but this 
was hardly to be distinguished from the 
shore-line, which was always passable in 
summer as far as Wolfe's Cove for people on 
foot. The course followed by Montgomery, 
therefore, after he had descended the steep 
of Wolve's Cove on his way to Pres-de-Ville, 
was beset with the winter difficulties to be 



Q TOrOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

seen at any time during the months of 
December and January near the tide-line of 
the river beyond Sillery or New Liverpool. 

The plan matured by Montgomery for the 
taking of the city was so simple and the 
only one feasible, that it is a wonder he 
remained so long out at Holland House 
without putting it into execution. Arnord 
was in f?t. Roch sauandering his strength 
and ammunition against Palace Gate and 
its blockhouse; and when he was dislodged 
from the Palace his principal vantage- 
ground, on its being unroofed by the 
besieged, there was nothing for him to do 
but to wait till Montgomery was ready to 
move from his encampment, and so combine 
in a simultaneous assault, by way of the 
steep street leading into the upper town, 
from the river front on the south side. But 
the true condition of affairs within the walls 
was not so well known to the leader of the 
invaders as were the dissensions in his own 
ranks. Delay had brought him no success. 
Indeed, he seems to Have been more or less 
the dupe of circumstances, living in a fool's 
paradise, from the moment he arrived before 
Quebec, if one would explain his inaction 
and the remarkable letters he sent to Carle- 
ton and the citizens. And when at lengtn 
he made up his mind to do something, before 
his soldiers could legally demand a release, 
it was hardly to be expected that other than 
failure would come of his assault. Carleton 
certainly stood in no fear of his advance 

There is no intention to place on record 




"The House where lay the General dead." 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 



The Angelus in the gloaming, ringing peace in 

time of strife, 
Scndeth echo through the streetlets that makes 

a jar of Hfe, 
While rumours, — ghastly rumours — scurry 

thieflike through the town, 
From citadel to suburb, making French and 

English frown 
At fate, that lingers brooding, near basilica and 

fane, 
Over colony and empire whose weal seems on 

the wane. 



10 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

The shadows bear the presage, on record much 

the same, 
When the good old city dared withstand a 

foreign foeman's claim, — 
When the rivals, France and England, deadly 

duel fought afield, 
Leaving prestige well protected under Britain's 

broader shield ; 
With citizenship a brotherhood that flouts the 

common foe. 
And claims its own the pride to aid its own in 

weal or woe. 

Yea, the shadows bear a presage, with no 

prophet near at hand, 
To read aright the tidings dire that linger 

through the land ; 
For alas ! St. Johns is taken, Mount Royal 

sore beset, 
And the Richelieu's great waterway gives joy 

to foe elate, 
Waylaying brave Sir Guy's descent near by the 

confluence-coigne 
Where Chambly's rapids, run their course, the 

proud St. Lawrence join. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. U 

God save us ! Who's the messenger that brings 

the tidings dire ? 
Whence comes he ? Give us patience ! Is he 

friend or foeman's hire ? 
What say the men that govern us — the men Sir 

Guy has sworn 
To man the walls and guard the gates against 

the invader's scorn ? 
Is there no one near to tell us what is false or 

what is true ? 
Is there no one near to tell us what 'tis the best 

to do ? 

The moon in ragged radiance looks askance 
upon the scene ; 

The drifting clouds fringe spire and dome as 
with a sackcloth screen ; 

And the crowd is growing wider around the 
Barracks Square, 

With the human streamlets closing in, from 
every thoroughfare : 

A vocal tremor fills the air, — a cry is heard 
beyond, 

Where the Chateau stands a sentinel on conse- 
crated ground. 



12 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

As from reservoir to cistern, the Place runs 

o'er in turn, 
And the news Hke wildfire blazes forth, as heart 

and temper burn; — 
'' The good Sir Guy is home again ! List to 

the cannon's boom ! 
" Hurrah for hope ! Hurrah for joy ! Away 

with doubting gloom ! 
" What ! Montreal has fallen ? Three Rivers, 

too, you say ? 
'' What of it, now that Carleton is with us in 

our fray ? 

'' Perchance poor Monsieur Arnold, with his 

tattered crew of braves, 
" Will dance again round Port St. Louis, to tell 

us we are slaves ; 
'' A second challenge he may send, decreeing 

still our doom, 
" Or bring a host from Pointe-aux-Trembles, 

without the walls to fume ; 
" But he'll find, with all his bluster or yet 

Montgomery's aid, 
"' That the colours of the British flag are never 

like to fade." 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 13 

Thus spake brave Maitre Thompson, beside the 

Chateau's gate, 
Where stood his comrades under arms the 

general to await ; 
Full well he knew how far the walls could check 

the approaching foe, 
Since, under orders night and day, he had been 

to and fro, 
From the Palais to the Citadel, making good 

the new defence, 
A blockhouse here, a picket there, with palisades 

condense. 

'* Fear comes and goes, yet Arnold knew a fear 
no more than we, 

" When hardship stayed his timorous march 
beyond the friendly sea, 

*' When through the pathless wilderness, across 
Megantic's heights, 

*' He traced the toilsome Chaudiere by a thous- 
and dismal lights : — 

" The British flag flaunts freedom, but is its 
freedom free ? 

" Perchance 'tis ours to find elsewhere a truer 
liberty." 



14 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

Bold be ye Adam Lymbtirner, in presence thus 

to speak, 
Since ears there are fell keen to hear, and minds 

as sure to leak. 
Some say 'twas Humiphreys carried yon a letter 

from without : — 
Was't then your hope of liberty made him a 

welcome scout ? 
Was't then you thought it safer far, to make a 

foe a friend, — 
A patriot or a traitor, your country to defend ? 

Not so spake Maitre Thompson, though the 
words were on his tongue. 

For the general then was passing in, while yet 
the plaudits rung ; 

But his face flashed indignation on the coterie 
near by. 

And Adam felt the lightning force of the over- 
seer's eye ; 

" God take such traitorous townsmen !" was 
all the goodman said. 

As Captain Owen sent him word to join the 
men he led. 




The Site of the "Second Barricade.'^ 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 15 

That night was consummation, — no doubt, far 

less despair ; 
A master mind was in command, his will was 

everywhere ; 
As he sat within his council and heard what 

had been done 
To make secure the city walls, the bastions one 

by one. 
As he heard the tidings from around, — the 

numbers of the foe, 
Within was courage, and without, joy took 

the place of woe. 

And soon the story went the rounds in every 

street and lane 
Of the risk the good Sir Guy had run to reach 

Quebec again ; 
How his fleet had neared L.avaltrie, where 

Easton lay in force. 
Defiance in his outer line, resistance his 

resource ; 
How the fateful winds opposing, despair sat 

vulture-like 
From every mast and broken spar to watch the 

invader strike. 



16 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

For brave Bouchette, the keen ' La Tourtre/ 
when tales were in the wind, 

Of an evening down in Notre Dame, the com- 
pany being kind. 

Would tell how he and Lanaudiere, took 
matters well in hand. 

And swore an oath that coiitc que coittc, the devil 
to command. 

They'd find a channel safe enough, the general 
in their charge, 

Round He du Pas to St. Maurice in the pilot's 
swiftest barge. 

" By Jove, you well may say it, — the night was 

black as pitch, 
" And every passage in our way looked black as 

midnight ditch : 
" Our mufBed oars abandoned, we paddled with 

our hands, 
" Stealing through the weed-grown reaches, and 

whispering our commands : 
" Was there doubt the foe were watching, — 

were watching as they could ? 
'' Oh, how we blessed the darkness, that hid us 

in its hood ! 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 17 

" Yes, a blessing is the darkness, as the general 

often said, 
'' You know the way, mon chcr Boiichettc, and I 

am not afraid ; 
" But we'll reach the safer open, before the 

dawn of day, 
*' And then your stalwart oarsmen, with ne'er a 

hand to stay, 
" Will sweep the wide St. Peter's, with speed of 

fleetest crew, 
'' To save Quebec, — 'tis all that's left, — to bless 

Quebec and you. 

'' To save Quebec ! God grant it ! and his 

words came free at last, 
" The dawn is here, the waters safe, up with 

your makeshift mast ; 
'' With wind and arm in favour, and current 

swift beside, 
" By noon we'll reach Three Rivers whatever 

may betide ! 
" 'Tis there we'll find some tidings of Arnold's 

late attack ; 
" Be brave my men, a patriot's stroke, until 

your muscles crack !" 



18 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

"And the men rowed fierce like fighters, a- 

fighting with their fate, 
" God save Quebec, their watchword, giving nerve 

to love and hate ; 
*' And still the general urged them on, the tiller 

in his hand, 
" Until the barge found moorage safe, near 

Laviolette's favoured strand ; 
" My gratitude, brave comrades ! Such loyalty 

is life, — 

" And he leaped ashore to dare the first, the 
tidings of the strife. 

'' And soon came yeoman Frazer, staunch 
royalist and brave ; 

" In haste across the fields he came and grateful 
greeting gave : 

" Some rebels have been here, he said, a- 

straggling east and west, 
" And fain were we to follow, their fighting 

gear to test : 
" And now we shall, my general, — ah, pardon, 

may I not ? 
" 'Tis only sixteen seasons since with Wolfe we 

both have fought. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 19 

'' But scarcely had the veterans grasped each 

other by the hand, — 
*',The townsfolk ear and eye intent, — the 

marvellous in demand, — 
** When there came a later tidings that the foe 

six hundred strong, 
'•' Machiche had crossed, full bent on harm, to 

reach the town erelong : 
•'• Then haste ye, men, the general said, haste for 

a country's weal, 
'' God saving us, we'll dare outrun the rascals 

in their zeal ! 

"And haste we did I tell ye, a mouthful ta'en 
in haste, 

'* The wind still in our favour to bend the make- 
shift mast ; 

•' And aye the general urged us on, the tiller in 
his hand, 

''Their zeal is nought to ours, he'd say, while 
yet our zeal he fanned. 

" Some craft no doubt is hovering where Arnold 
safely hides ; 

" So, on, my hearties — keep the time, — keep 
heart whate'er betides !" 



20 THE MONTGOMEKY SIEGE. 

Thus brave Bouchette would gossip, when tales 

were in the wind 
Of an evening down in Notre Dame, to keep the 

company kind, 
Or further tell of hazards on the way to Point 

Platon 
Where the rapids made the river the crests of 

danger don. 
Where the curvings of the northern banks 

round many a pleasant bight 
Them led to Pointe-aux-Trembles with Arnold's 

tents in sight. 

And oft, — the wine-cup lingering, — Bouchette 

would sing with pride : 
*' Ho, there, my hearties, — keep the time, — keep 

heart whate'er betide ! 
*' Ho, here's to Napier's frigate that met us on 

our way ! 
" What care we now since Carleton is with us in 

our fray ! 
" Hurrah for hope! hurrah for joy! — away with 

doubting gloom ! 
" For the good Sir Guy is home again, — home 

to Quebec, our home !" 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 21 

Far other tales of daring had whilom gone the 

rounds, 
In the dingy doubtful rendezvous of Sault-au- 

Matelot's bounds, 
Where the slinking disaffected would seek the 

midnight hour 
To entertain some wretched spy, or plan some 

change of power, — 
Less bold than Adam Lymburner in openness 

to speak, 
Afraid of ears fell keen to hear, if not of minds 

that leak. 

'Tis said no word escapeth the. phonograph of 

time — 
No thought of secret daring — no ecstasy of 

crime ; 
And if the Neptune's time-worn walls their 

record would reveal 
Of guests hob-nobbing unawares, rebellion to 

conceal, 
What a tale of double-dealing— of bravery 

perchance — 
In these doubtful restless days of yore, its annals 

might enhance ! 



22 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

For was It not the hostel, in the years between 

the wars, 
Of mine host, the bonhomme Tache, whose fame 

had reached the stars, 
The trysting-place of traders, the haih'ng-ground 

of cheer, 
A focus-point of welcome, diverging far and 

near ? 

Was it not where burly Benedict, a-mannered 

blufif and bold. 
Made courtship to the valour that is weakness 

when 'tis sold ? 

I know you've heard the story of his march 

across the plain. 
Where the Kennebec its sources finds, within 

the woods of Maine, — 
Of his daring on Dead River, his camp at Spider 

Lake, 
His muster where the Chaudiere goes brawling 

through the brake, 

His bravings in the wilderness by cataract and 
fell. 

His triumphs over forest foes incredible to 
tell ; 




The "Neptune Inn" (Restored.) 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 23 

But had you known Sir Boniface, the Neptune's 

lusty host, 
The phonograph of time perchance had not its 

records lost, 
Of guests hob-nobbing unawares, rebellion to 

conceal. 
Dire tales of double-dealing, delivered under 

seal, 
When ambitious burly Benedict, with manners 

bluff and bold, 
A- dallied with a double fate presaging shame 

for gold. 

W^ithin a blearing darkness, remote from public 

ken, 
One night the disaffected sought audience yet 

again, 
In Tache's secret chamber, as rang the midnight 

hour, 
Running chances with the populace, to plan a 

change of power ; 
I'^or known it was, through Mercier, with tidings 

from the foe, 
That burly boastful Benedict would strike 

another blow. 



24 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

And when the Hght gave entrance, with silent 

call of roll, 
The phonograph of time made haste to turn its 

record's scroll : 
There was Francois Sourde, the tanner, with 

Caldwell as ally, 
And Judas Duggan, barber bold, and three of 

kindred fry. 
And Ancien Boulanger, of sapient vacant mind, 
Whose vapourings made a proverb of the 

veerings of the wind. 

There was Adam d'Eaux and Pierre Le Jeune, 

with Mercier's clan near by, 
And lurking near, with furtive glance, Jules 

Turque, the quondam spy, 
And one or two of Arnold's friends, who knew 

him in the days 
He bargained in the hostel-halls or joined the 

trader's frays ; 
Nor least of all was Williams near, the man who 

knew no fear, 
Till danger stood him face to face or shouted in 

his ear. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE, 25 

"Why should we budge ?" as first he was, in 

whisperings thus to speak, 
" You have your rights and hopes beside, with 

vengeance yet to wreak ; 
" The invader gives us better terms than 

Carleton proclaims, 

*' The freedom of the future has in it prouder 

aims ; 
" Then budge we not ! Together stand, and 

claim our own reward ! — 
''A challenge give in mustering strength, and 

mystify the guard ! 

'• What lesson is there yet to learn of England's 

cruel might ? 
'' Escaping, risk ye yet again the hateful 

tyrant's blight ? 
** Is Bigot dead to live again, in seigneur's 

grasping wrath, 
'' As save we from oppression's chains a living 

worse than death ? 
•'*' Are mothers', wives' and children's cries again 

to rend our ears, 
" With famine stalking through the land, their 

only food our tears ?" 



26 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

Then, others having spoken, Le Turque took up 

the word, 
With a message in his tasseled tuque, 'twas time 

he should be heard : 
Ho\v came he by the message, the ramparts so 

secure. 
Nor spy nor scout assured enough to cHmb the 

countermure ? 
" 'Twas a woman, grey and haggard, from the 

cove beyond the heath, 
" Had given him the message, Montgomery's 

name beneath." 

And they Hstened to the daring, with the furtive 

in their eyes. 
Cupidity and cunning gloating over promised 

prize, 
While 'twas read how pending carnage avoided 

still might be. 
If a townsman only could be found the gates to 

open free : — 
Ay, if traitor only could be found, to act the 

coward's part. 
Planning ruin for his city, bringing shame to 

patriot's heart. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 2? 

But scarce had ceased the reading, when 

Williams, pale with dread, 
Made whisper of a distant din — a something's 

hurried tread : 
'Tis nothing ! No ! Yet nearer still the rush is 

in the street, 
And the Neptune's door, loud shaken, hastens 

Tache to his feet ! 
What's that ? And that ? Make haste, ye fools: 

Ha,ha, no time to run, 
For the corridors run counter, while there's 

seizing one by one ! 

'' So ho, my hearties, caught at last ! God send 

you grace in time !" 
And the captain of the town's patrol made 

laughter somewhat grim. 
" The general needs a score of you, to soothe an 

anxious hour, 
" So make ye ready running, there are places 

else to scour ; 
''' The Chateau's near ; Sir Guy is there ; the 

jail is on the hill ; 
" We'll give you quarters for the night, so march 

ye will-or-nill." 



28 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

And the grey is in the dawning, snell winter 

in the air, 
V/hen the populace, in a day or more, to Louis 

Gate repair ; 
For the wretched disaffected are ordered, man 

b\' man, 
To leave the precincts of the town, the traitress 

in their van ; 
Sir Guy has spurned the foe within, to dare the 

foe without, 
Ali courtesy suspending to treason, spy or 

scout. 

And even Adam Lymburner, as the overseer 

said. 
No longer sought the public ways, his 

sympathies to spread, 
But found retreat within the woods of Begon's 

Hermitage, 
His soul to soothe in solitude, his judgment 

better gauge. 
That the British flag waves freedom, a freedom 

that is free. 
With little hope to find elsewhere a truer 

liberty. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 29 

The days were at their shortest, there was hurt- 

Hng in the air 
As December, breeding bitter blasts, was 

nursing its despair ; 
A reckless foe, a ruler stern, — to do or die in 

both, 
The one in guise of liberty, the other true as 

oath 
Kicrnal ! What the issue ? God wot, there's 

only one ! 
Tliough the marchings out of Chambly seemed 

a holiday begun. 

Within the city's palisades, beneath the bastion's 

frown, 
No quarter's given to cowardice, no grace to 

idle brawn ; 
No loyalty inactive : — '' Ho there, a willing 

hand ! 
'' Keep watch and ward at yonder nook, attend 

the countermand ! 
'' Sir Guy's behest is law within, his word is 

faith enough, — 
" A man to fear, a man to love, ay, ay, of 

British stuff !" 



30 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

And even now the brave Bouchette had oft to 

be restrained : — 
''' The foe, by Jove, what is the foe ? The scruff 

of humankind ! 
" Give me my sword and Lanaudiere, with 

matters well in hand, 
** And, coiitc que coiite, the horde of them, the 

devil to command, 
" We'll put en route to Boston beach, and crave 

no rich reward : 
" Ay, ay, fear not ; to save Quebec, we'll soon 

relieve the guard ! " 

But the wise Sir Guy craves patience and makes 

defence secure ; 
Urging citizen and soldier insultings to endure; 
The walls bemanned to westward, the Palace 

Gate enclosed, 
The vantage-nooks and ledges, with outlooks 

well disposed. 
Give assurance to the barricades along the 

river's line, 
From Pres-de-Ville the outer guard to Sault- 

au-Matelot's chine. 




GENERAL Sir GUY CARLETON. 
(Lord Dorchester.) 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 31 

And still the watchful days and nights keep 

lingering into weeks, 
\Vith a message scorned from Holland House, 

'mid cannonading freaks, 
Or yet deserter slinking near, and faltering ta'en 

within. 
To tell his tale of failing hearts, nathless the 

open din : 
And Barnsfare and McQuarters, with a hint 

how things will be, 

Keep a keener guard than ever, in the cause of 
liberty. 

And Maitre Thompson labours on, with his 
hundred men or more. 

No blockhouse uninspected from the Palais to 
the shore : 

" We'll dare the devils and their ploys," 'twas 

his with pride to say : 
'• They little reck what old Quebec can gather 

for the fray : 
" The day they came from Levis I fired the 

bastion's gun, 

" And, do ye know, the rascals ran as if their 
dargue was done ; 



32 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

" But once give Jones the signal, Dupre, 

Chabot, P^icard, 
' With kindred watch-dogs, true as steel, their 

mystery will mar : 
' With a Caldwell and Mackenzie and a 

Hamilton to boot, 
' Sir Guy, our freedom's champion, will rout 

them horse and foot : 
' The poor old Palais lies full low, o'erturned 

by friendly blow, 
• But lower still, the day quite near, shall 

yonder dastard foe 

' Be driven back from every glade. What 

daring brings them here ? 
' Is this their land — their hearth-and-home ? 

Think they we quake with fear ? 

' Ha, ha, my lads, 'tis ours to fight for what is 

yet our own ! 
' En has with those who soon will reap what 

they have wildly sown ! 
' They little reck what old Quebec can muster 

for the fray : 
' We'll dare the devils and their ploys, our 

trust in God alway." 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 33 

Indeed so ill the secret was kept beyond the 

town, 
Tliat from citadel to water's edge, the invaders' 

plans w^ere known ; 
/Vnd when the year had run its course beyond 

the Christmastide, 
There was waiting for their coming, as if 'twere 

naught to hide, — 
One band approaching from the A use, the other 

by St. Roch, 
To meet at foot of thoroughfare to escalade the 
rock. 



The night is dark, the sifting snow wreathes 
high its rampart walls, — 

A fitting hour for mischief's deeds, wrath- 
winged with fitful squalls. 

Expectation stands on tiptoe, though no mur- 
murings are heard, 

Revealing passion's wakefulness, by any idle 
word : 

For Barnsfare and McQuarters, now knowing 
what's to be, 

Have instant duty well in hand, in the cause of 
liberty. 



34 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

And Malcolm Frazer has betimes good use for 

both his eyes, 
With forecast's surety in his soul to anticipate 

surprise : 
" Did ye not see that tongue of fire ? Why, 

there it is again ! 
" A signal ? Yea, the truth at last ! Our 

watching's not in vain ! 
'' Ho, there, ye guards, arouse ye ! Ring out 

the town's alarms ! 
'' The foe is hither marching : to arms, to arms, 

to arms !" 

And in the RecoUets' Convent, the governor 
takes his place, 

There is calmness in his bearing, a smile upon 
his face, 

" Stand by your posts, each man his own, you 
know them well, I trow, 

" There is danger only when disgrace be- 
smirches fealty's vow : 

" If barricade or picket fail, no likely fate to be, 

" Here on this crowning ground I'll wait the 
hour for you and me. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 35 

'' The cannonading yonder is feigning of its 

kind, 
" 'Tis from below the struggle comes ; so wing 

ye with the wind, 
*•' Each to his own, brave comrades ; stand by 

the barricades : 
" Faitli in one's king and country — a soldier's — 

seldom fades, 
'* Your baptism, perchance severe, will bring its 

own reward : 
" Stand by ye then, march with your men, and 

instant join the guard ! " 

No further word is spoken, no need for counter- 
mand ; 

All else is ordered as before, each knows his 
own conmiand : 

For the good Sir Guy had chosen subalterns 
faithful, true. 

From the loyalty within the town, when the 
traitorous withdrew ; 

And he watches for their tidings by the beetling 
hillside's brow 

From the outer posts of Pres-de-Villc and 
Sault-au-Matelot. 



■ 36 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

And, as he stands, the din of war comes distant 

to his ear, 
A muffled sound near Palace Gate, a sound of 

seeming- fear ; 
Then louder as if bolder, men's shoutings fill 

the air : 
Is the picket yet in danger ? Is there in these 

cries despair ? 
But the governor, trained a soldier, is silent as 

a king. 
And awaits for surety's message his faithful 

scouts will bring. 

" What, ho, they're past the Palais!" corroborate 

tidings come, 
'"' The demon Arnold at their head, with 

rataplan of drum ; 
" Their marching now an open game, they 

thread the Canoterie, 
**' The shipyards on their outer flank, the Battery 

on their lee, 
" Will they dare the deadly danger from the 

ramparts overhead ? — 

" Ah, there it is — the first to fall — a shower-bath 
raining lead ! " 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. .37 

And still another voice brings tale : " They're 

at the barricade ! — 
" Forlorn the hope before them, behind a whole 

brigade : 
'* The snow is in their bloodshot eyes, the cold 

their senses stuns, 
" 'Tis hand to hand, no quarter now, they've 

thrown away their guns : 
" They say their leader's fallen, and Morgan 

takes his place ; 
'' What cheering's that ? Is't ours or theirs ? 

It cannot mean disgrace ? 

'' Disgrace to us? It cannot be! The barricade 

is ta'en ! 
" Who told you that ? Is Caldwell there ? Ay, 

ear, and eye, and brain ! 
'■' Lymburner's house is in his hands, where 

centring passions roar, 
*' The windows bringing in relays, while the 

invader's at the door : 
'' Brave, say ye ? No one braver ! List to his 

musketry ! 
"' Can heroic strife be closer ? Wait till the 

rascals flee !" 



38 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

For flee they must the din declares, attacked in 

front and rear, 
With Nairne, Damboiirges, and all the rest at 

last in full career. 
A pause ! a cheer ! a mighty cry ! Is't true the 

day is ours ? 
God save Quebec ! Quebec is saved, since God 

thus owns her powers ! 
Hurrah for hope ! Hurrah for joy ! Away 

with doubting gloom ! 
Tor the good Sir Guy is home again^iome to 

Quebec, our home ! 

But Pres-dc-Ville, I pray thee! Is the leader 

overcome ? 
Ay, hours agone ! At early dawn he met his 

sudden doom ! 
Amid the snow his body lies, his sword-hand in 

the air ; 
Around him, dead, his comrades : his followers 

in despair ; 
For Farnsfare and McQuarters knowing well 

what was to be, 
Had no failing in their courage in the cause of 

liberty. 



I— ( 
O 

I 

O 

hH 




THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 39 

The tale is brief. A Hazard blindly thrown in 

fortune's face, — 
To do or die in action, — since delay forebode 

disgrace ! 
The day is at its breaking, the wind a thousand 

darts, 
Frost-pointed, piercing keenly, while the foot of 

soldier parts 
The curving drifts below the cliffs, as best a 

soldier may, 
When obstacles of nature, as of arms, are in his 

way. 

There's no hiding of their errand now, as a 

keen-eyed guardsman says, 
And theirs will be the welcome soon that stills 

ambition's craze : 
See how they brave the ice-floes, to overtake 

the path 
That labours round Cape Diamond to further 

fateful wrath ! 
They dream, perchance, we're sleeping, as we 

rest upon our arms ; 
Ay, ay, they'll hardly waken us till nearer our 

alarms ! 



40 THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 

Now they turn the ledge's limits, whence the 

picket's been withdrawn : 
The fools ! they're daring nearer ! be ready 

man to man ! 
Ah, how the storm goes raging ! Just wait an 

instant more ! 
Hush ! There they are, a handful ! Now let 

the volleys roiar ! 
There's no resisting fire like that ! ah, ha, they 

disappear ! 
Another volley once again, and victory is 

near ! 

And when Montgomery's orderly, with but an 

hour to live, 
Was borne in time within the camp, he had no 

word to give 
Of his masters fate, though well he knew how 

far his cause was lost ; 
But he told how brave a word was his, with 

little heart to boast, 
As he led his men from Holland House across 

the snow-bound plain. 
With fate contending step by step to end the 

dread campaign. 



THE MONTGOMERY SIEGE. 41 

" Forward," he cried, — our leader cried, — 

'' disaster lies behind ! 
" If foe there be, we'll dare the worst, in teeth 

of every wind : 
'' The outer post's abandoned ; perchance the 

inner fort ; 
" So hand to hand, I dare demand extremity's 

support ; 
'* If hardship has beset our path, the prize is 

near at hand ; 
'' So, onward press, my gallants, 'tis our country 

gives command," 

And as they soothed the sergeant's couch, and 

sought for further word. 
If his leader was among the first to pass the 

outer guard ; 
" Who knows may say," the poor man sighed ; 

*' he safety may have found, 
'' To nerve his followers' courage, my comrades 

yet beyond, — 
" A restive band, God knows how far, since a 

soldier may not tell !" 
And weird the word came from his lips, alas ! 

the last to fall. 



4*2 THE MONTGOMEUY SIEGE. 

Fate ! folly ! was't a soldier's dream, — his 

death ,a nation's birth ? 
His sword the emblem of a cause, or but a 

soldier's worth ? 
Crown him with pride ! He has been crowned. 

But what of those who stood 
Against his ill-timed onset, — of Carleton the 

good ? 
Of Farnsfare and McQuarters, daring w^ell what 

was to be, 
Ey faith abiding hand to hand in the cause of 
liberty ? 



BIOGRAPHY OF SIR GUY CARLETON. 

Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dor- 
chester, was the third son of General Sir 
Guy Carleton, of Newry, Ireland, being born 
at Strabane on September 3rd, 1724. Having 
entered the Guards as a youth, he received 
a lieutenancy in the 72nd Foot when twenty- 
four years of age, and served in Germany, 
where he was distinguished for his efficiency 
as an officer and his bravery in the field. 
With the rank of Colonel he accompanied 
Wolfe in his expedition against Quebec, 
during which campaign he acted as quarter- 
master-general. He had also to take 
charge of the engineering department, for 
Wolfe soon found that his engineers had 
little experience and less zeal. In the strug- 
gle which ensued, and which was to decide 
the ownership of Canada, Carleton had 
command of an attack on Pointe-aux-Trem- 
bles, was wounded at the Battle of the 
Plains, and served under Murray at the 
Battle of St. Foye. He acted as brigadier in 
the expedition against Belle Isle, as quarter- 
master in the siege of Havana, and was 



44 SIR GUY CAELETON. 

wounded at the capture of the Spanish 
redoubt on More Hill. In 1766 he arrived 
at Quebec, with a commission to act as 
administrator of the government of Canada 
in the event of the absence of the governor; 
and later, on October 25th, 1769, succeeded 
General Murray as governor-in-chief of the 
colony. On assuming this important office, 
he quickly gained the public regard, from 
the fairness and consideration with which 
he treated the inhabitants, among whom at 
the time of his appointment, there was much 
dissatisfaction. The French element of the 
population were making demands for the 
restoration of the French civil law and 
custom. Carleton listened to their petitions, 
and after making a study of the situation, 
arranged for the careful compiling and 
revising of the Coutume de Paris, which 
embodied the civil law; while the criminal 
law of England was declared to be in force. 
In 1770 Carleton returned to England on 
leave, of absence, and while he was away 
petitions were prepared asking for the 
inauguration of a House of Assembly in 
accordance with the terms of the Royaf 
Proclamation of 1763. These requests were 
ultimately granted by the passing of the 
Quebec Act in 1775. During the same year 
the American Revolution broke out, shortly 
after Carleton's return to Canada, and all 
his energy was required to save British 
America to the Crown. After the capture 
of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the "Gates 
of Canada," by the Continental forces, as 



SIR GUY CARLETON. 45 

they were called, the governor summoned 
the seUjneiirs, and called upon them to enroll 
their censUaires in the militia. The 
Jidhltants refused to take up arms, and Carle- 
ton declared martial law. Upon the continued 
refusal of the habitants to serve in the 
country's defence, Bishop Briand, at the 
governor's request, issued a pastoral letter, 
urging the people to respond to the call 
made upon them. Even this had but little 
effect, so that Carleton had to prepare for the 
defence of the colony with very few troops 
at his command. He, however, divided this 
meagre armament as best he could, to guard 
the various approaches to the interior, and 
set out himself for Montreal, where his 
further appeals to the French-Canadians 
were again met with indifference. By this 
time the country was in a critical phase of 
its existence. It was threatened with what 
geemed likely to prove an effective invasion 
by a hostile force, while all was not peace 
and harmony within its borders. The 
English population was to a great extent 
disloyal, being jealous of the privileges 
granted to the French portion of the popula- 
tion by the Quebec Act, and, on the other 
hand, the latter refused to join in the 
defence of the government which had grant- 
ed them these privileges. The capture of 
the forts at Chambly and St. Johns by 
Montgomery's forces was followed by an 
attack on Montreal, which also fell tempor- 
arily into the hands of the invaders. Sir 
Guy, however, escaped just as Montgomery 



46 SIR GUY CARLETON. 

was entering the town, and passing silently 
down the river, reached Quebec on Novem- 
ber 19th, an event which without doubt 
saved Canada to Britain. Here he found 
consternation reigning as a result of the 
siege inaugurated by Arnold, who had 
arrived before the walls by way of the 
Chaudiere valley. How the governor 
grasped the situation at once, expelled the 
disaffected from the town, and, imparting 
his own fixedness of purpose and energy to 
the little garrison, succeeded in frustrating 
the besiegers' every attempt to effect an 
entrance, is a matter of history. In 1766, 
Carleton organized an expedition against 
the revolted colonies and defeated Arnold's 
flotilla on Lake Champlain. The following 
year he was superseded in the command by 
Burgoyne, who proved comparatively incom- 
petent; but in 1781 he succeeded Sir Henry 
Clinton as commander of the British forces 
in North America, and in 1786 was apponted 
Governor-General of Canada, having been 
raised to the peerage, as Lord Dorchester, 
shortly before his appointment. On his 
arrival he immediately assembled the Legis- 
lative Council and formed its members into 
committees to enquire into the state of the 
€;ducation, commerce, laws, and police 
protection in the country, the chief justice 
having charge of the investigation into the 
condition of legal affairs. These enquiries 
showed that things were in a very indiffer- 
ent state in every particular; and to remedy 
the evils thus discovered, the Constitutional 




Major General Richard Montgfomery, 
after the portrait by C. W. Peale. 



LORD DORCHESTER. 47 

Act of 1791 was passed by the British Parlia- 
ment, after having been submitted to Lord 
Dorchester for revision. Canada lost one of 
the best friends she ever had when Lord 
Dorchester took his departure from her 
shores on July 9th, 1796. His kindliness, 
justice, sound common sense and love for 
constitutional government endeared him to 
all classes of Canadians, who have ever 
justly regarded him as having been instru- 
mental in securing for them the freedom 
which they enjoy. He died at Maidenhead, 
England, on the tenth of November, 1808. 



BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD MONT- 
GOMERY. 

Richard Montg-omery, the general in 
command of the forces which besieged 
Quebec in December, 1775, and who lost hi» 
life during the attack upon that stronghold 
on the morning of the 1st of January, 1776, 
was an Irishman by birth. He was born in 
December, 1736, near Peltrim, Dublin, and 
received his education at Trinity College. 
Early in life he chose as his calling the 
army, being attached to the Seventeenth 
Regiment when eighteen years of age. He 
served under Wolfe at the siege of Louis- 
bourg, and later, in 1759, was with Amherst 
on Lake Champlain, and with Haviland in 
the following year. He received a captaincy 
in 1762, and as such saw further service at 
Martinique and Havana. Throughout the 



48 RICIIAIJD MONTGOMERY. 

Seven Years War he acquired mn.ch experi- 
ence and some distinction as a soldier; and 
lool^ed forward to gaining his majority on 
his return to Ireland. Failing in this, he 
sold his commission and betook himself to 
America, arriving in New York, where he 
married Janet, eldest daughter of a former 
friend of his. Judge Robert R. Livingston. 
It seems to have been his intention, upon 
his marriage, to retire definitely from a 
military career, and to content himself with 
the retirement of his own home circle. Pur- 
chasing a Tarm at Rhinebeck, he built a:, 
house and mill, and settled down to a life 
of rural ease. Embracing, however, the 
political views of his wife's immediate rela- 
tives, who were all ultra-colonial in their 
opinions, he was not long allowed to remain 
in seclusion. Possessed of more than ordi- 
nary ability, and thoroughly schooled in the 
art of warfare, his services were of too much 
value to the embryo nation to be lightly 
set aside. In 1775, he was chosen by the 
electors of the county of Dutchess to repre- 
sent them at the first provincial convention 
in New York, being almost immediately 
appointed a brigadier-general in the army, 
which was being organized by Washington, 
— a position which it is said he accepted 
with some reluctance. 

Montgomery was convinced of the strate- 
gic advantage to be gained by the acquisition 
of Canada, and, while relieving Schuyler at 
Ticonderoga, received despatches from 
General Washington, outlining a plan of 



KICHARD MONTGOMERY. 49 

campaign having that for its object. Being 
thus connected with the enterprise, Mont- 
gomery found himself ere long in command 
of the invading expedition, and conducted 
personally the capture of St. Johns and 
Montreal, and ultimately the attack on 
Quebec, where, as has been said, he was 
abruptly cut off in the prime of his life. 
The motives which influenced Montgomery 
in joining the colonial forces against the 
royal master of his earlier years have been 
the subject of much discussion among 
historical writers and others; but in view of 
his apparent general character and marked 
talent, it is only fair to give him the benefit 
of any doubt there may be. As regards his 
change of allegiance, his position was not 
greatly different from that of his compan- 
ions in the struggle which lost to England 
the American colonies. 

BIOGRAPHY OP BENEDICT ARNOLD. 

Benedict Arnold, second in command to 
General Montgomery in the attack on 
Quebec in December, 1775, was a native of 
America, being born at Norwich, in Connec- 
ticut, on the 14th of January, 1741. When 
very young he enlisted as a soldier, but 
deserted from the ranks shortly afterward, 
and worked as an apothecary's assistant in 
his native place. Removing to Now Haven, 
in 1762, he carried on business as a druggist 
and bookseller, becoming after a time a 
property owner and assuming the title of 



50 BENEDICT ARNOLD. 

general. Failing in business, lie entered the 
service of the State of Massachussetts, early 
in 1775, with the rank of colonel; and a few 
months later was entrusted with the 
command of the two battalions, consisting 
of about eleven hundred men, sent by 
Washington against Quebec. His success 
in leading this force on its terrible march 
through the trackless wilderness of Maine 
and the valley of the Chaudiere, proved 
that he was a man of daring bravery and 
wonderful endurance. Having effected a 
meeting with Montgomery before the walls 
of Quebec, he took part in the attack and 
was seriously wounded. For his services in 
this connection he was appointed a briga- 
dier-general; and in 1776, was in command 
of a small ileet, — engaging in a naval fight 
on Lake Champlain, in which, though not 
successful, he showed a great deal of 
courage and skill. Notwithstanding the 
recognition given to his intrepidity, he was 
not promoted to the rank of major-general 
until 1777, although several officers who 
were his juniors received that distinction 
before him. This was a cause of much 
annoyance to him, and made him discon- 
tented with his position in the service. He 
was present at the battles of Bemis Heights 
and Stillwater, on the latter occasion show- 
ing an utter lack of subordination to the 
general in command. In this engagement 
he was again seriously wounded, being 
rendered unfit for service for some time. 
In 1778, Congress gave him the command 



BENEDICT ARNOLD. 51 

at Philadelphia, where he married, as his 
second wife, Margaret, daughter of Edward 
Shippen, who afterwards became chief-jus- 
tice of Pennsylvania. Having during his 
tenure of this office, incurred heavy pecu- 
niary obligations and made a number of 
enemies, he was tried by court-martial on a 
variety of charges; and, though he was 
acquitted, the general-in-chief was ordered 
to reprimand him. So convinced, however, 
was Washington of Arnold's ability and 
freedom from fault, that he praised rather 
than censured him. In 1780, at his own 
seeking, he was given command at West 
Point, an important military post, and 
almost immediately entered into negotia- 
tions with the British authorities to hand it 
over to them. The arrangements for the 
carrying out of this act of treachery were 
practically completed, when Major Andre, 
who was acting for the British general in 
the matter, was captured and the plot 
was discovered. Arnold fled and sought 
refuge on the Vulture, a British war vessel, 
on September 25th, and escaped to New 
York, where he joined the British army. He 
was commissioned to lead an expedition 
from that point against Virginia, where he 
greatly harassed the colonists in that part 
of the country, and did much damage to 
their property. He received £6,300 from 
the British Government for his proffered 
services; and, retiring to England, as the 
war was drawing to a close, died in London, 
little regretted, in June, 1801. 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

St. Paul's Chapel, situated at the lower 
end of Broadway, was erected in 1776, and 
is the oldest building of colonial origin in 
New York. It was the only building of 
importance that escaped in the burning of 
the city in 1776, and for twelve years there- 
after was the parish church. The inaugu- 
ration procession of General George Wash- 
ington was received in this place of worship 
by Bishop Provoost on the 30th of April, 
1789, the newly elected president being 
accompanied by both Houses of Congress 
and the members of the Cabinet. The pew 
is still shown which the President occupied 
as a member of the church between the 
years 1789 and 1791. As has been said, the 
remains of General Montgomery were de- 
posited within the precincts of this chapel 
in 1818, and from the monument erected to 
his memory may be read the following 
inscription: " This monument is erected by 
the order of Congress, 25th January, 1776, to 
transmit to posterity a grateful remem- 
brance of the patriotism, conduct, enterprise 



54 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

and perseverence of General Richard Mont- 
gomery, who after a series of successes and 
amidst the most discouraging difficulties, 
fell in the attack of Quebec, 31st December, 
1775, aged 37 years The State of New- 
York caused the remains of Major-General 
Richard Montgomery to be conveyed from 
Quebec and deposited beneath this monu- 
ment, the 8th day of July, 1818." What 
a quiet retreat out of the swirl of 
life in the streets around ! What a crowd- 
ing of memories, amid the crowding of the 
great city's interests! There is no need for 
a service to sanctify the soul of the wayfarer 
here. The old sounding-board of the pulpit 
has its lesson of the past to teach, as has 
almost nearly every other object near by, 
from the old graveyard without, to the old 
pews within. The church itself is a relic 
of old colonial times; and, when one 
examines the coat-of-arms of the Prince of 
Wales above the old-fashioned pulpit, he 
wonders how it comes to be there after all 
that has been said and done. The modest 
card he holds in his hand, however, tells 
him the story of its escape from the hands 
of the iconoclasts, and American and 
Britisher are alike glad to-day that it did 
so escape, in presence of the international 
sympathy that gives a guarantee of the 
world's greater progress in the years to 
come. 

Notre Dame des Victoires. — This church 
is situated on what was called originally the 
Grande Place of lower town, in Quebec, and 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 55 

later the Place du Marche. The site for it 
was secured after some delay by Bishop 
Laval in 1648, and the church itself was 
opened as a place of worship in 
1688, two years previous to the siege 
by Sir William Phipps. After this 
event, it was called Notre Dame de la 
Victoire. and when the tidings was borne 
to the town that the projected siege by 
Admiral Walker in 1711 had been abandon- 
ed, on account of the shipwreck of the 
squadron under his command, the name was 
changed to the plural form, Notre Dame 
des Victoires, as a memorial of both events. 
The interior of the church was destroyed 
during the siege of 1759, and the relics it 
contained lost. Among the curios destroyed 
there was a picture of Quebec in flames' 
bearing a prophetic inscription declaring 
that lower town would be destroyed by fire 
some time previous to 1760, as well as a flag 
captured from Phipps during the memorable 
contest in the harbour. Notre Dame Street 
extends from Mountain Hill westward to 
Champlain Market, receiving its name no 
doubt from the above church. In olden- 
times it led directly to the open waters of 
the Cul-de-Sac, and was once a busy 
thoroughfare on market days with the 
Marche de la Place in front of it. This 
open space formed part of the enclosures 
of the Habitation of Champlain. In front 
of the church stood the pillory, and within 
the open space of the square the scaffold 
for executions used to be erected. In 1641, 



5G TOrOGEAPHICAL NOTES. 

there stood in the centre of the square, 
where the fountain now is, a wooden statue 
of Louis XIII., which was superseded by one 
in bronze in 1667, a gift from M. de Cham- 
pigny. The first church ever erected in 
Quebec stood at the head of the Cul-de-Sac, 
at the foot of tlie narrow pathway now 
obviated by Breakneck Steps. It was under 
the supervision of Father Dolbeau, who 
arrived in Canada in 1615, with his associate 
Recollets, Father Jamay and Father Le 
Caron; and there is a record of the Te Deum 
sung witliin its walls on the arrival of 
Madame Champlain, as well as on account 
of its destruction in the siege of 1629. While 
digging at the foot of the stairway in 1856 
the foundations of this chapel were laid 
bare, and a vault exposed containing the 
remains of a human skeleton. At first it 
was thought that the remains were those of 
Champlain himself, but they were afterwards 
identified as those of Father Duplessis, the 
first of the Recollets to die in Quebec. 

Mountain Hill, or Cote de Lamontagne. — 
As the visitor takes his way down Mountain 
Hill, he may wish to pause for a moment 
for an explanation of the strange name the 
thoroughfare has had ever since the city had 
an English resident. The street was open- 
ed up by Champlain when he was drawing 
stone and building material from the vicinity 
of the Habitation, to use in the construction 
of Fort St. Louis. The declivity which ran 
from the graveyard to Sous-le-Fort Street, 
and which is now indicated by the line of 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 57 

Breakneck Steps, he found too steep, and so 
ho opened up a new scntier to connect with 
what was called Cote du Magasin, which 
ran parallel with the direction of the present 
Notre Dame and St. Peter Streets. At first 
the roadway was very narrow. Then it was 
widened after the fire of 1682, after which 
houses began to be built first on one side 
and then on the other. John Neilson, of the 
(lazcttc, had his printing house opposite the 
opening leading to the steps, in one of the 
houses which was removed after Prescott 
Gate had disappeared. The narae of the 
street was given to it in honour of one of 
its residents, Mr. Lamontagne. Hence the 
term Mountain Hill is its own appropriate 
name, and no misnomer; while, as a street, 
it should be called in French Rue or Cote 
de Lamontagne, and not de la Montague. 

Champlain Street, which extends along 
the base of Cape Diamond from the Cham- 
plain market place to the city limits, has 
many objects of interest to examine along 
its winding course. Prominent among these 
are : Little Champlain Street, formerly a 
business centre of the town; the old Guard 
House at the entrance to the wharves of the 
Marine and Fisheries Department; the scene 
of the Landslide of 1889; the Anglican 
Chapel; the Norwegian Schoolhouse; the 
great ladder-like stairway leading to the 
Cove-fields ; the Diamond Harbour Chapel ; 
and the remains of the old harbour of 
Quebec. 

Of these the Market-Hall itself takes a 



58 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

noticeable prominence. The space around 
it formed the little bay so long known as 
the Cul-de-Sac, — the inner harbour of 
Quebec in its early days. The spacious 
building was erected in 1858, out of the 
materials of the old Parliament House, 
which stood on the site at the head of 
Mountain Hill now known as the Frontenac 
Park. The architect had instructions to 
retain the form of the building as it was to 
be seen when parliament assembled in its 
halls, and this was done with the exception 
of the dome and the wings. The visitor, 
therefore, in examining the exterior of this 
market-house is virtually looking at the 
Quebec Parliament Building as it was seen 
at the time of the union of the two Canadas. 
Little Cham pi a ill ^Street was formerly called 
Rue de Meules in honour of the Intendant 
of that name. At the time of Champlain, 
this street bounded the governor's gardens 
on the north, having at its easterji extremity 
the little wooden church erected by the 
Recollets in 1615. It is specially described 
by Charles Lever in his "Con Cregan," and 
is said to have been at one time one of the 
city's important commercial centres. Behind 
one of the houses facing the short stairway 
connecting the two Champlain Streets, there 
is still to be seen what was once known as 
Champlain's Fountain, — a spring of clear 
cold water trickling from the living rock. 
It is mentioned in several public documents, 
but its exact position was unknown for 
years until Mr. P. B. Casgrain brought it 



TOrOCiliAPIlICAL NOTES. 59 

to light. In the eighteenth century tlie 
tide ran up to the base of the cliff, and there 
was no ChampLain Street beyond Pres-de- 
Ville, when Montgomery made his march, 
there being no houses on the beach all the 
way to Siliery. Hugh McQuarters, the 
artillery sergeant who had charge of the 
guns at Pres-de-Ville, had his residence in 
the street, where he died in 1812. So far the 
house in which he lived has not been identi- 
fied. 

Breakneck Steps have been in existence 
since the year 1660 according to a plan of 
the town bearing that date, previous to that 
time there being only a pathway leading to 
or from the little church which Champlain 
built at the head of Sous-le-Fort Street" 
overlooking the Cul-de-Sac. In 1706, for 
some cause or another, the Superior Council 
ordered the steps to be so narrowed above 
and below that only one person could pass 
at a time. The present iron stairway was 
erected in 1895, as part of the earlier city 
improvements, the old wooden steps being 
removed none too soon. 

The King's Wharf and Storehouses. — 
At the junction of the two Champlain Streets, 
there is a grouping of quaint buildings 
which cannot but attract the eye of the 
visitor. The old building with its cannon- 
protected gateway and ancient-looking 
dingy guard-house was once the King's 
Arsenal or Military Storehouse, while the 
more modern building to the west along the 
line of the street was once the Custom 



63 TOrOGRAnilCAL NOTES. 

House, and is now occupied by tlie Quebec 
brancii of the Marine and Fisheries Depart- 
ment. Tlie wharves within are tlie property 
of the federal government and have formed 
scenes of many memorable public receptions 
of distinguished guests arriving by water. 
The spaces within also witnessed the gather- 
ing of the troops during the Rebellion of 
1837, as well as during the excitement of 
the Fenian Raid. By a careful examination 
of the limits of the wharfage some idea can 
be formed of the compass of the Cul-de-Sac, 
with what is now called the Napoleon 
Wharf at its eastern bend and the govern- 
ment wharves at the western. In one of 
the buildings, a sad spectacle was presented 
to the citizens of Quebec on the 19th of 
September, 1889, when a morgue had to be 
improvised for the bodies of the victims of 
the terrible landslide. The effects of that 
catastrophe may still be seen a few hundred 
yards further on at the end of the Dufferln 
Terrace where the face of the rock parted 
from the hillside and in its descent over- 
whelmed several dv/ellings, burying in the 
debris from fifty to sixty persons. The 
bodies were placed side by side in a chamber 
of the old Custom House as they were dug 
out one by one; a memorial of the lamen- 
table awe-inspiring spectacle having been 
handed down to us in the following verses: 

Have you heard the dh-eful tidings 
Trembling in the morning air, — 



TOPOGRArHlCAL NOTES. 61 

Death that harbours with disaster. 

Bringing on the town despair? 
All last nighi from eve' to daybreak, 

Roared the tempest, pouring down, 
Lashing like some blinding fury, 
Through the highways torrents grown. 

What, you have not heard the tidings, 

How the storm did not abate, 
As the darkness deep as Egypt's 

Settled like a coming fate! 
Why, 'twas flood and earthquake rending 

Rock and terrace-strand in twain, 
Crashing with relentless downfall, 

Rack and ruin in its train! 

Up and to the work of rescue; 

Brothers help us; sisters, pray: 
Dig for life; tear out the timbers; 

Heave the boulders from our way! 
Hark, a sound beneath the debris! 

Hark, again, a human sigh! 
Dig for love; O, dig in earnest! 

Dare we pause when one may die! 

What, you say, 'tis yet another, — 

A fair-haired laddie, limp and dend ! 
O God, to think how many, many, 

Lie upon the morgue's cold bed! 
Young and old, men, women, children! — 

What of that?. Again that cry! — 
Yes, 'tis there, though faint and feeble. 

Up, and every sinew ply! 

To the work, a thousand helpers! 
Should we save but one 'twere well! 



62 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

The sounds below come near and nearer. 
Making every heart-ache swell: 

He's dead you say? No, no, he's living! 
Be tender, lift him out with care! 

Would that all had thus been rescued! 
Alas; the wish but brings despair! 

He dies; he's dead; the last one dead! 

Count them? No, we may not stay! 
Such lament makes hope a ruin; 

Let us help those whom we may. 

Alas, for us and for our city! 

Alas, for those who victims fell! 
Alas, for weeping kindred, wailing. 

As the verger tolls the knell! 
Crash it came; No moment's warning: 

Down it plunged, dire avalanche: 
Rock and ruin, breaking, bursting. 

Making all the world blanche. 

Pres-de-Ville was situated near the gate- 
way leading to the Allans' Wharf. There 
was but a short distance, as Caldwell says, 
between the King's wharf and the King's 
forges, which must have been situated near 
the base of the landslide just referred to. 
It will be noticed that one of the Allans' 
storehouses has about it an interesting look 
of age. It was at one time a brewery, 
standing at the end of the roadway passable 
for vehicles and occupying the site of the 
Potash, or Mr. Simon Frazer's house near 
which Farnsfare and McQuartors were 
stationed the morning of Montgomery's 




QUEBEC. 



TOPOGEAPHICAL XOTES. C3 

advance. The configuration and projection 
of the rock, here indicates how suitable the 
locality was for an outpost, as well as how 
necessary to have an outlook round the 
angle, to watch the advance of an invader. 
An incident is recorded by Kingsford which 
shews how isolated Pres-'de-Ville was con- 
sidered to be, by those who had guarded it 
so well. Shortly after the repulse of Mont- 
gomery, "some old woman came in with an 
account that the other division of the 
enemy had surprised the post at Sault-au- 
Matelot, and was in possession of the lower 
town. Some of the detachment commenced 
to conceal their arms, others to offer to 
throw them in the river. Such fear was 
shown that a Mr. Coffin, who had taken 
refuge in the house adjoining the barricade, 
with his wife and twelve children, drew his 
bayonet and declared he would put to death 
the first man who laid by his arms or 
attempted to abandon the post. With the 
assistance of the seamen two guns were 
pointed in the direction of the city, in case 
they should be assailed from that direction, 
though Arnold's force was at that moment 
surrendering as prisoners of war." 

Cape Diamond is the name given to the 
rock on which the Citadel is built, and 
which extends beyond the platform exten- 
sion of the Duff erin' Terrace proper to the 
old French outv/orks. The first name given 
to the rock was Mont de Cast, bestowed 
upon it by Champlain in honour of his 
superior officer, De Monts. But the crop of 



G4 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

transparent quartzite crystals which recur 
in its strata led to the use of the name it 
continues to possess. It is supposed that 
the great rock, which is over three hundred 
feet in height, led from its striking appear- 
ance to the naming of the city itself; though 
no one will now ever be able to tell which 
of Jacques Cartier's men it was that shouted 
in admiration when he first saw it, "Que 
becque! What a cape!" It is interesting 
to know that Quebec, that is Kcpav or Eelbec, 
Kelibec, in the Algonquin language means a 
narrow place, or a place shut in, which the 
harbour of Quebec certainly seems to be as 
we approach it from outside. 

The Ruisseau St. Denis and Wolfesfield 
are of the deepest interest to those who 
would study the sieges of 1759 and 1775. 
From the front of the house, the natural 
pathway can be seen along the line of the 
burn up which Major John Hale made his 
way on the morning of the 13th of Septem- 
ber, 1759, while his master took possession 
of Vergor's outpost on the other side of the 
scnticr leading direct from the Cove itself. 
Near the turn of the road in a corner of the 
Marchmont grounds may still be seen 
the remains of the French entrenchments, 
which Montgomery must have passed on 
his way to meet his fate at Pres-de-Ville. 
The first house on the grounds was erected 
by Captain Kenelm Chandler who died as 
seigneur of Nicolet, in 1853. 

Holland House, — a long high-peaked struc- 
ture, situated on the St. Foye Road near 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 65 

the top of Sandy Hill and a little to 
the right of the site of Mr. Ross's present 
villa, — was not known by that name until 
it came into the possession of Major Samuel 
Holland, in 1780. It had been originally 
built in 1740 by Mr. Jean Tache, a merchant 
of lower town, and ancestor of Sir Etienne 
Tache of later political fame. Beyond the 
interest attached to the place as the head- 
quarters of Montgomery in 1775, it has a 
history of its own, in connection with the 
annals of Quebec society, beginning with a 
visit of the Duke of Cornwall's great-grand- 
father, and ending with the death of Judge 
Okill Stuart, the last of the owners of the 
original Holland Farm, which extended 
from the St. Foye to St. Michael's Chapel, 
and contained over two hundred acres. 

The Quebec Bank stands on an historic 
spot of much interest to any one trying to 
learn the topography of the siege of 1775. 
It was here the Lymburners' offices and 
storehouses stood, with some dwellings, 
opposite, belonging to Joseph Levy the Jew. 
The second barricade, which Morgan beset 
after Arnold had been wounded, was built 
ai the junction of Sault-au-Matelot and Dog 
Lane. Arnold's detachment had taken lad- 
ders with them, and under Morgan's 
command these had been placed in position 
outside the barricades, and finally a lodge- 
ment for one of them was made on the inner 
side. Meantime the besieged took posses- 
sion of the houses above mentioned, pouring 
from the windows in the rear a deadly fire 



66 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

upon those of the enemy who had been 
able to get within the barricade. The 
ladder within the barricade was at lengtn 
seized by the defenders and placed against 
the gable of one of the houses, thus enabling 
a stream of Caldwell's men to pass into the 
upper rooms, while Morgan's men were 
rushing in by the street door, only to be 
driven out at the point of the bayonet. For 
a time after this the scene within the second 
barricade was a hand to hand contest, along 
towards Des Soeurs Street, where there was 
a third line of defence. But the reserves 
under several British officers came pouring 
in from behind, and when the invaders saw 
this they immediately threw down their 
arms. When they were being conducted 
back as prisoners, the corner house against 
which the ladder stood had to be passed 
through, each prisoner entering by the front 
door and descending from the upper window 
into the street outside the barricade; but, 
as there were over four hundred prisoners 
taken, the barricade itself was finally open- 
ed to give space for a general march back 
to Palace Gate and thence to the Seminary 
v/here it was decided the prisoners should 
be located. • 

Of the Quebec Bank itself, it may be said, 
that it was organized in 1818 with a propos- 
ed capital of $600,000. It has had its 
charter amended several times, and after 
the disturbances of 1831, during which the 
banks were obliged to suspend operations, 
a Royal charter was secured during the 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 67 

reign of William IV. The present building 
was erected in 1863. On the wharf which 
once extended from the neighbouring site, 
were built the stores of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, and the situation of this wharf 
so near St. Peter Street, as late as 1823, 
indicates the remarkable changes that have 
been made in the river front since that date. 

''The Rock of Dog- Lane."— Before St. 
Paul Street had been laid out as a connect- 
ing thoroughfare between lower town and 
St. Roch, there was only a narrow pathway 
along the shore line, wide enough for the 
foot passenger, and frequented by the boys 
and their dog-sleds or little carts in searchi 
of kindling wood near the shinyards or 
along high water mark. It runs from 
Dambourges Street to St. James Street, and 
provides ample material to the student of 
the lower aspects of life, as well as to the 
artist in search of the picturesque that is 
unique in its presentations. The great 
angular ledge that shoots into the alley-way, 
formed a suitable place for the erection of the 
first of the barricades that impeded Arnold's 
march on his way to join Montgomery at 
the foot of Mountain Hill. Between this 
rock and the second barricade near Adam 
Lymburner's house. Arnold was wounded 
in the leg and had to be carried to the 
rear. 

The Ramrtarts, extend from the head of 
Mountain Hill to the site of Palace Gate. 
They played an important part in the siege 
of 1775. Carleton had detachments placed 



68 TOrOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

along the whole line of this roadway, and 
as the five companies of the enemy passed 
along the Canoterie and Dog Lane, they 
received successive volleys from the troops 
above. The Battery has a commanding 
position at the south-eastern end of the 
Ramparts, adjoining the Frontenac Park, 
which has a history of its own, as the site 
of the former Parliament Buildings, and 
previous to that as the site of the Bishop's 
Palace which once overlooked Prescott Gate. 
The Intendant's Palace was situated at 
the foot of Palace Hill, there being still some 
remnants of its original walls to be seen 
within the precincts of what is called Bos- 
well's Brewery. It was a spacious buiFding 
extending over what would now constitute 
two or three blocks, having an enclosed 
frontage laid out in parterres that ran 
towards the St. Charles. Strange that the 
site should originally have been occupied 
by a brewery as it is now. This first 
brewery was built by Intendant Talon in 
1655, and was removed by his successor in 
office, Intendant de Meules, who at his own 
expense erected the first group of buildings 
that went by the name of the "Palais." 
These were destroyed during their occupancy 
by Intendant Begon. The structures were, 
however, rebuilt a few years after on even a 
larger scale than before, with the main 
entrance a little within the line of St. Valier 
Street; and when it was finished no less 
than twenty buildings were grouped round 
the main structure, including the goverri- 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 69 

ment offices and the notorious L<i Fiiponne, 
which stood near what is now the entrance 
to the present brewery. When Quebec fell 
into British hands in 1759, the place was 
used as a barracks, as was also the ola 
Jesuits' College ; and when Arnold drove 
out Carleton's men from it in 1775, seeking 
to make a near place of refuge for his own 
men, the artillery around Palace Gate direc- 
ted a destructive fire against it, and reduced 
it to ruins. From this time, until its sur- 
roundings were t^ken possession of for 
building nurpo^es. the wide space familiarly 
called "the Palais" extended from what is 
now St. Nicholas Street, to the eastern end of 
St. Valier Street, and when the greater part 
of it was divided into building lots, a portion 
was retained to be used as the Commis- 
sariat's fuel yard. The ruins of the Palace 
itself were standing as late as 1845, the year 
of the great conflagration which swept St. 
Poch. It had been previously used bv the 
military authorities as a storehouse and 
stable, while the vaults were rented as wine 
cellars, and ice-houses; but the great heat 
generated by the fire reduced the walls to a 
crumbling mas<?. and sad to relate, many 
unfortunates who had taken refuge in the 
cellars, lost their lives in thp ruins. A visit 
to the site is of the srreatpst interest not 
only to those who would study carefully the 
topoerapbv of the surroundine-s. but to the 
readers of the Chmi d'Or, by William iCirby. 
who graphically depicts the scenes enacted 
within its walls during the regime of that 



70 TOPOGRxVPHTCAL NOTBS. 

libertine-oppressor, Intendant Bigot. In this 
connection, it may be said that the Intendant 
as an official was little inferior in point of 
rank to the governor himself. He was presi- 
dent of the Sovereign Council and had the 
superintendency of four departments namely 
Justice, Police, Finance and Marine. 

The Hotel Dieu, as it at present stands, 
is a development from a very humble-look- 
ing structure erected, in 1639, through the 
liberality of the Duchess d'Aiguillon, who 
had received a deed of the land, on which 
it stood, from the "Company of One Hundred 
Associates." The Duchess and her uncle, 
Cardinal Richelieu, endowed the institution, 
and with the revenues derived from this 
endowment and the properties which have 
come, by grants and legacies, into the hands 
of the community of nuns controlling its 
affairs, the institution has now for its habi- 
tation one of the most imposing structures 
in the city. Its proximity to the site of 
the Palace Gate connects it with the story 
of the siege of 1775. The primary function 
of the institution is to provide for the indi- 
gent sick. The Chapel is of some interest, 
possessing, as it does, several valuable 
pictures and interesting relics such as the 
Crucifjx 0//^r«r/(', and a bone of Breboeuf, the 
martyr-missionary. The first great advance 
made by the institution was in 1654, when 
Governor Lauzon laid the foundation-stone 
of the new hospital chapel. Further addi- 
tions were made in 1672, under the patron- 
age of Intendant Talon, when a brass plate 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 71 

bearing record of the liberality of those who 
had assisted the institution at its inception 
and afterwards, was inserted in the founda- 
tion-stone of the main building. The latest 
improvements were made in 1890, when its 
present magnificent facade was added, and 
its enclosures completed. 

The Seminary of Quebec provided a 
retreat for the ofncers of Arnold who were 
taken prisoners in 1775. It was first opened 
as a training school for priests in 1663; and, 
as early as 1688, it had an attachment in its 
school for boys, first opened in the house of 
Madame Couillard, the daughter of Louis 
Hebert, who may be looked upon as the 
first French settler in Canada. The farm 
of the latter covered the ground to the 
north-east of the present site of the Basilica, 
near v/hich stood the Chapelle de la Recouv- 
rance built by Champlain on his return to 
Canada, after Sir David Kirke's siege. 
Hebert's farm-house seems to have stood on 
the ground now occupied by the Bishop's 
Palace, while the gardens of the Seminary 
and University buildings occupy what was 
the frontage-lands of his farm. From 
the theological school for priests and the 
day-school for boys were finally developed 
the (j)rnid Si'minaire and the Petit ^eminairc, 
both of which still continue as schools 
within the quaint high-storied buildings of 
the spacious court-yard of Laval. The 
main entrance to the Seminary is at the 
head of Fabrique Street, between the 
Basilica and the Seminary Chapel, and this 



72 TOPOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 

is also one of the entrances to the Laval 
University, the latest development of Bishop 
Laval's early educational enterprise. The 
Superior of the Seminary is also Rector of 
the University, and while the professors of 
the latter may be Roman Catholic or Protes- 
tant, the teachers of the former are in orders 
and consist of agreges and auxillaires. The 
agreges are members of the corporation, 
being represented on the council and having 
with it the indirect supervision of the affairs 
of the whole institution. The revenues of 
the Seminary are derived from landed pro- 
perty that has marvellously increased in its 
proportions as well as in its value, from the 
days of its founder. There are over five 
hundred students in attendance, while the 
equipment includes a well arranged museum 
and a library of 140,000 volumes. 

What used to be an object of great inter- 
est to the visitor, namely, the old Seminary 
Chapel built in 1670, has been replaced by 
the present modern structure. The oVd. 
chapel contained a number of very valuable 
paintings, master-pieces of the early French 
schools, — but the most of these were destroy- 
ed when the building was burned in 1888. It 
was for a time used as the parish church 
while the Basilica was being repaired from 
the ruinous effects of the siege of 1759. One 
of the most magnificent of the numerous 
engrossing views of the city is to be seen 
from the roof of the university building 
proper. 



LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NOTES. 

'^Tlie Angelus in the gloamiii^^." — Since 
the appearance of the celebrated painting by 
Millet, "the Angelus," has become a popular 
term, designating a devotion in the Roman 
Catholic Church in memory of the Annun- 
ciation. At the ringing of the church bell 
at sunrise, noon, and sunset, the faithful 
are expected to repeat an Ave after three 
scriptural texts, as in Millet's representa- 
tion of a man and woman hearing the signal 
while at work on the field. The word 
"gloaming" carries the same meaning as the 
word from which it is derived, namely the 
Anglo-Saxon, glom, twilight. 

'' From Citadel to Suburb." — The term 
"suburbs" still remains, being applied to the 
parts of the city outside the walls, the 
suburbs of St. John, St. Roch, and St. 
Sauveur being still used as a distinction from 
upper and lower town. (1.) The suburb of 
St. John extends along the northern section 
of the plateau from the city walls without, 
as far as the Banlieu, being intersected by 
the thoroughfares of St. John Street, 



74: LITERARY NOTES. 

D'Aiguillon Street, and Richelieu Street. 
(2.) The suburb of St. Roch extends from 
the "Palais" to the Boulevard Langelier, 
being intersected by the two main thorough- 
fares of St. Valier Street, and St. Joseph 
Street. (3.) The suburb of St. Sauveur 
extends westward from the BoulevarcT- 
Langelier to the city limits, being 
traversed by St. Valier Street, the 
longest thoroughfare in the city. In 
early times the suburb of St. John was the 
most populous of the city's outskirts, and 
bore anything but an enviable reputation. 
St. Roch has always been the section speci- 
ally resided in by the French-speaking 
citizens; or as it has been put, "the English 
held the summit of the plateau with the 
French on their one hand, and the Irish on 
the other." 

'< When the rivals France and Eng- 
land." — The contest between Wolfe and 
Montcalm for the possession of the city was 
an outcome of the general European quarrel 
between France and England during the 
Seven Years' War. See "The Battle of the 
Plains." 

'' Under Britain's broader shield." — Per- 
haps the strongest element in the loyalty of 
the French race in Canada is the conviction 
that there is a wider measure of liberty to 
be had for them under British rule, than 
there would have been had Canada continu- 
ed a French colony. The national celebra- 
tion of Dominion Day, and Empire Day are 
even yet, however, but little shared in by 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 75 

the French-speaking Canadian in some parts 
of Canada. 

" For alas ! St. Johns is taken." — The 
old fort of St. Johns, of the Eastern Town- 
ships, is still an object of interest to the 
visitor, as is also the He aux Noix, where 
Montgomery had his encampment with 
Schuyler. The facts of the siege are briefly 
these. On September 6th, 1775, Schuyler, 
with forces less than a thousand, and sup- 
ported by Montgomery, marched to within 
a couple of miles of the fortress; but, 
without even reconnoitring, far less investi- 
gating, the forces were ordered back to He 
aux Noix. Schuyler who seems to have 
been in ill-health at the time, indicated so 
little of the soldier, that congress finally 
placed the command entirely in the hands 
of Montgomery. That commander's first 
movement was to march a band of five 
iiundred of his men to the north of St. 
Johns, which, driving back a sally from the 
fort, took up its position at the junction of 
the roads to Chambly and Montreal. Subse- 
quently the invaders erected a battery to 
the north-west, within two hundred and 
fifty yards of the fort; and kept up a 
constant fire on the place. Carleton was 
in the meantime engaged in mustering a 
force in Montreal, to send to the relief of 
the besieged, but this having been scattered 
by the Green Mountain Boys, there was 
nothing left for the garrison of St. Johns 
to do, but to march out with the honours of 



76 LITERAKY NOTES. 

war. The siege had lasted fifty days, 
ending on the 3rd of November, 1775. 

^' Mount Royal sore beset." — The citizens 
of Montreal had valiantly withstood the 
vapourings of Ethan Allan, and were looking 
forward to final relief, when Carleion's force 
was dispersed. Nine days after the capture 
of St. Johns, Montgomery unopposed took 
possession of Montreal, and at once began 
to make his preparations for advancing on 
Quebec, where Arnold was awaiting his 
arrival. 

'' Near by the confluence-coigne." — After 
a course of eighty miles from Lake Cham- 
plain the Richelieu empties its waters into 
Lake St. Peter, the expansion of the St. 
Lawrence. It is interrupted by the rapids 
of St. Johns and Chambly. The modern 
town of Sorel is built on a commanding 
site on its right bank, at the junction of the 
two streams, and forms a resort of great 
interest to the literary man. Here M. de 
Tracy bult a fort as early as 1665, while 
the governors of Canada made it the place 
of their summer residence for many years. 
Under the name of Fort William Henry, it 
holds a prominent place in the annals of the 
country. In the centre of the town is an 
antiquated reserve, commemorating the 
importance of the place in olden times. 

^'Around the Barracks Square." — The 
Jesuits' Barracks was once a well-known 
structure in Quebec, its site being now 
occupied by the City Hall. The front of the 
building was in line with the street, and 



HISTOKICAL NOTES. 77 

included a quadrangle of ample dimensions 
behind. Its history forms a central thread 
in the history of the city itself, and very 
appropriately has its site been converted 
into the surroundings of the new Hotel de 
Ville. In 1637 the Jesuits, who had their 
headquarters at first on the little Lairec, 
obtained from the Company of New France 
a grant of twelve acres of land in the city 
on which to erect a seminary, a church and 
residence. The foundations of the main 
building, which ran from Fabrique Street, 
were laid in 1647, and of the chapel in 1650. 
For over a hundred years the order had 
tt eir Canadian headquarters in this building. 
In 1765, General James Murray had the 
premises fitted up as a barracks, and the 
court and garden laid out as a parade 
ground, and as such it continued until the 
withdrawal of the British troops in 1871. 
In 1873 the buildings were demolished in 
the passion which first seized the citizens for 
modernizing the town. During the demoli- 
tion of the building several interesting relics 
were discovered, but so regardless of the 
past were the leaders of the movement in 
favour of city improvements, that even the 
memorial stone which stood over the old 
gateway has not been preserved; while the 
box, containing the relics and coins collect- 
ed, was so carelessly looked after 'chat it 
was broken open one night and its contents 
stolen. Indeed the hasty spirit of the 
iconoclasts was to be seen in the fact that, 
for nearly twenty years after the demolition 



78 LITERARY NOTES. 

of the building, its squalid ruins lay as an 
eyesore to everybody who had to look upon 
the old "Barracks Square," which has now, 
through the enterprise of Mayor Parent, 
become one of the central beauty spots or 
the city, 

*'' The Place runs o'er in turn." — The 
Place d'Armes, known sometimes as "the 
Ring," is represented in many old engrav- 
ings as an important meeting-place of the 
"sociabilities" of early times, the rendez- 
vous of the tandem-club, snowshoe revellers, 
etc. An excellent object lesson on the early 
history of the colony can be given from one 
of the restful nooks near its fountain; for, 
looking towards St. Anne Street, have we 
not the site of the Chateau St. Louis to the 
right, and the site of the Recollet Church to 
the left, with the old Union Hotel in 
Morgan's warehouse, the old Chien D'Or 
supplanted by the Post-Office Building, the 
old Court House out-marvelled by the 
present Palais de Justice, and the Chateau 
Haldimand obliterated by that splendid 
caravanserai, the Chateau Frontenac. It 
is easy to know how it came to be known 
as the Place d'Armes being near the old 
Grande Place of Champlain's time and the 
Fort St. Louis, with the palisades of the 
protected Hurgns alongside of it. 

" "Will dance again round Port St. 
Louis." — On the 3rd of September, 1775, as 
Overseer Thompson tells us in his diary. 
"Colonel Arnold, with a party of upward of 
seven hundred Americans, came out of the 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 79 

woods at the settlements on the River Chau- 
diere; and on the 9th they marched to Point 
Levis where they showed themselves on the 
bank, immediately opposite the town of 
Quebec. On the 14th, in the night, they 
passed across the St. Lawrence, and paraded 
in front of Port St. Louis, at about three- 
hundred yards distance, where they saluted 
the town with three cheers, in full expecta- 
tion, no doubt, that the gates would be 
opened for their reception. At this juncture, 
I was on Cape Diamond bastion, and levelled 
and fired a 24-pounder at them, which had 
the effect of making them disperse hastily 
and retire to Point-aux-Trembles." 

'^Thus spake brave Maitre Thompson." — 
James Thompson, the overseer of public 
works during the siege of 1775, has left in 
his journal a description of the events of 
that exacting time which has been of great 
service to the compiler of the history of 
the siege. Of the man himself, it may be 
recorded that he was a native of Tain, Scot- 
land. At the early age of twenty-six, he 
accompanied the Frazer Highlanders to 
Louisbourg, and a year later arrived in 
Quebec as a volunteer with Captain Baillie. 
He was hospital sergeant at the time of the 
battle on the Plains of Abraham, and was 
thereafter appointed overseer of public 
works. For over seventy years his stalwart 
frame was a well-known object on the 
streets of Quebec, his experiences as nar- 
rated by himself being always a welcome 
story to the citizens and their visitors. He 



so LITERARY NOTES. 

was a soldier of undoubted valour and a man 
of unbending integrity, loyal to the core, 
and impatient of anything that seemed to 
detract from the prowess of Great Britain. 
He was very proud of being the possessor 
of Montgomery's sword, and liked to tell in 
his own words the story of how it came to 
be his: "On its having been ascertained 
that Montgomery's division had withdrawn, 
a party went out to view the effects of the 
shot, when as the snow had fallen on the 
previous night about knee deep, the only 
part of a body that appeared above the 
level of the snow was that of the general 
himself, whose hand and part of the left 
arm was in an erect position but the body 
was much distorted, the knees being drawn 
up towards the head; the other bodies that 
were found at the moment were those of his 
aides-de-camp Cheeseman and MacPherson 
and one sergeant. The whole were frozen 
stiff. Montgomery's sword — and he was the 
only officer of that army that I ever perceiv- 
ed to have one, — was close by his side, and 
as soon as it was discovered, \\hich was 
first by a drummer-boy. who made a snatch 
at it on the spur of the moment, and no 
doubt considered it liis lawful prize, but I 
made him deliver it up to me, and some 
time after I made him a present of seven 
shillings and sixpence by way of prize money. 

As it is lighter and shorter than 

my own sword. I have adopted it and wore 
it in lieu. Having some business at the 
• Seminaire ' where there was a number of 



HISTOKICAL NOTES. 81 

American officers, prisoners of war, of 
General Arnold's division, I had occasion 
to be much vexed with myself for having it 
with me, for the instant they observed it 
to have been their general's they were 
much affected by the recollections that it 
seemed to bring back to their minds; indeed 
several of them wept audibly. I took care, 
however, in mercy to the feelings of these 
ill-fated gentlemen, that whenever I had to 
go to the Seminary afterwards to leave the 
sword behind me." One of the last public 
acts of the old overseer was when, as senior 
mason, he gave, in 1827, the three mystic 
taps to the foundation stone of the monu- 
ment in the Governor's Garden, in the 
presence of the vast multitude present. He 
died at his residence in Ursule Street in 1830, 
at the advanced age of ninety-eight. 

''Where the Chateau stands a sentinel." — 
The Chateau St. Louis, the old Government 
House of Canada, stood on what is now the 
corner of the Dufferin Terrace nearest the 
Post Office. This famous site was originally 
occupied by the Fort St. Louis, which was 
erected by Champlain and which was the 
place wherein he died. Later on, the 
Chateau St. Louis took the place of the Fort, 
having been improved by Frontenac, rebuilt 
and enlarged by Haldimand and others, and 
finally burned in 1834, when Lord Aylmer 
was governor-general. What Quebec is to 
Canada, this spot is to Quebec, and the 
visitor cannot make too much of it, if he 
would understand the remote historic 



82 LITERARY NOTES. 

periods of the ancient capital. The Chateau 
Haldimand, for years in use as a Normal 
school, was the last of the go\'ernment 
buildings to disappear from the prospect 
point now occupied by the Champlain 
monument, and the Chateau Frontenac. The 
history of the old chateau has been carefully 
written by M. Ernest Gagnon, while the 
descriptive poem Dominus Doml, published 
at the time of the uncovering of the Cham- 
plain monument, portrays the within and 
the without of what was once the home of 
Champlain, Frontenac, Carleton, Dalhousie 
and Durham. (See the brochure The Old 
Chateau.) 

" He traced the toilsome Chaudiere." — 
The following is the account given by 
Bancroft, the historian, of Arnold's memor- 
able march: "After they took leave of the 
settlements and houses at Norridgewock, 
their fatiguing and hazardous course lay up 
the swift Kennebec, and they conveyed arms 
and stores through the thick woods of a 
rough, uninhabited, and almost trackless 
wild; now rowing, now dragging their 
boats, now bearing them on their backs 
round rapids and cataracts, across morasses, 
and over craggy highlands. On the tenth 
the party reached the dividing ridge between 
the Kennebec and Dead Rivers. Their road 
now lay through forests of pine, balsam fir, 
cedar, cypress, hemlock and yellow birch, 
and over three ponds that lay hid among 
the trees and were full of trout. After 
passing them, they had no choice but to 



HISTORICAL NOTES. S3 

bear their boats, baggage, stores, and am- 
munition across a swamp, which was over- 
grown with bushes and white moss, often 
sinking knee deep in the wet turf and bogs. 

" On the 15th the main body were on the 
banks of the Dead River; following its 
direction a distance of eighty-three miles. 
Encountering upon it seventeen falls, large 
enough to make portages necessary, and 
near its source a series of small ponds 
choked with fallen trees, in ten or twelve 
days more they arrived at the carrying-place 
of the Chaudiere. 

" The mountains had been clad in snow 
since September; winter was howling around 
them, and their course was still to the 
north. On the night preceding the 28th of 
October some of the party encamped on the 
height of land that divides the waters of 
the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. As they 
advanced their sufferings increased. Some 
went bare-foot for days together. Their 
clothes had become so torn, they were 
almost naked, and in their march were 
lacerated with thorns; at night they had no 
couch or covering but branches of ever- 
greens. Often for successive days and 
nights they were exposed to cold, drenching 
storms, and had to cross streams that were 
swelling with the torrents of rain. Their 
provisions failed, so that they even ate the 
faithful dogs that followed them into th^ 
wilderness. 

" Many a man, vainly struggling to march 
on, sank down exhausted, stiffening with 



84 LITERARY NOTES. 

cold and death. Here and there a helpless 
Invalid was left behind, with perhaps a 
soldier to hunt for a red squirrel, a jay, or 
a hawk, or various roots and plants for his 
food, and to watch his expiring breath. 

" The men had hauled up their harges 
nearly all the way for one hundred and 
eighty miles, had carried them on their 
shoulders near forty miles, through hideous 
woods and mountains, often to their knees 
in mire, over swamps and bogs almost 
impenetrable, which they were obliged to 
cross three or four times to fetch their 
baggage; and yet starving, deserted, with 
an enemy's country and uncertainty ahead, 
officers and men, inspired with the love of 
liberty and their country, pushed on with 
invincible fortitude." 

We have another view of the same march 
from the pen of our Canadian Historian, Dr. 
Kingsford, who tells us that the difficulties 
to be encountered could only have been of 
an ordinary character, and one has only to 
analyse the picture of Mr. Bancroft with 
the eye of a true woodsman to see that it is 
not a little overdrawn. Still there was 
courage enough indicated in the undertak- 
ing as a whole to have made a hero of 
Arnold for all time with his fellow-country- 
men had not after events cicatrized their 
hero-worship. 

'' Bold be ye Adam. Lymburner." — The 
Lymburners filled some space in the com- 
mercial activities of Quebec at the time of 
the American invasion, and there is every 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 85 

evidence, that the representations of the 
poem are not without foundation. Their 
storehouses stood on the site occupied at a 
subsequent period by the Hudson's Bay; 
Company and at present occupied by the 
Quebec Bank. There were three merchants 
of the name of Lymburner in Quebec at 
the time of the siege. Adam, as Sir James 
LeMoine ^ays, being the cleverest of the 
three, though he was perhaps more distin- 
guished for his forensic abilities and know- 
ledge of constitutional law than for his 
allegiance to British interests in Canada. 
In 1791, Adam Lymburner was sent to 
England to suggest amendments to the new 
constitution the Imperial authorities were 
preparing for Canada. He died at the ripe 
age of ninety years in London, England. 

^' Some say 'twas Humphreys." — Captain 
Humphreys was associated with Morgan in 
his command of the Virginia Riflemen, and 
met his death during the siege of 1775. It 
seems, however, that Arnold had others 
whom he could commission to confer with 
his personal friends in the beleagured town, 
friends whom he had made when he visited 
Quebec in his earlier years; and possibly 
the services of the "amiable Humphreys," 
who was killed in Sault-au-Matelot Street, 
should have been represented as having 
been rendered by another. 

^* How his fleet had neared Lavaltrie.'' — 
The station on the Canadian Pacific Railway 
between Three Rivers and Montreal is eight 
miles from the village of the same name, 



86 LITERARY NOTES. 

situated on the north bank of the St. Law- 
rence. On the island opposite the village 
there are now two lighthouses, which 
illuminate at night the former mooring- 
place of Easton's boats, that once lay in 
wait for Governor Carleton on his way to 
save Quebec from the invaders. 

" For brave Bouchette, the keen La 
Tourtre.'' — Captain Bouchette had won for 
himself from his associates the title of "The 
Wild Pigeon" (La Tourtre) on account of his 
swift and active movements. He was a 
resident of Quebec, living in St. Peter Street, 
when that thoroughfare was the principal 
residential street. The name of the boat 
in which he set sail with the governor from. 
Lavaltrie accompanied by Lanaudiere the 
aide-de-camp, has survived, it having been 
called Le Gaspc, Captain Bouchette is not to 
be confounded with Joseph Bouchette the 
topographist and historian. 

" Round He du Pas to St. Maurice.'' — 
Between the Berthier side of the river and 
the Sorel side, at the head of Lake St. Peter, 
there is an archipelago of which one of the 
largest islands is He du Pas, immediately 
opposite Berthier-en-haut. The scene of 
"the weed-grown reaches" is one well-known 
to every sportsman who has explored this 
archipelago in search of the wild fowl that 
make the district one of their favourite 
breeding grounds. St. Maurice originally 
designated the district which is drained by 
the river of that name and which extended 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 87 

far beyond the present limits of the county, 
of which Three Rivers is the chef lieu. 

" Near Laviolette's favoured strand." — 
On the public square of Three Rivers, near 
the site of the old Habitation, stands the 
statue of Laviolette, the founder of the city 
in 1634. The story of early days in Three 
Rivers has been attractively told by the 
Canadian historian, Mr. Benjamin Suite. 

" And soon came yeoman Frazer." — The 
Frazer Highlanders, who took part against 
the French in Canada in 1759, remained, 
many of them, in the country, and made 
excellent settlers: and the reprisal of time, 
the quarrel-healer, is seen in the fact that 
there are still Frazer families settled along 
the St. Lawrence whose English and Gaelic 
have alike disappeared in the patois of the 
Juihitaut. The Frazer mentioned here is 
historic; he was a well-to-do lumber mer- 
chant and a loyalist to boot. 

" On the way to Point Platon." — Below 
Portneuf there is to be seen one of the most 
picturesque of the narrowings of the St. 
Lawrence, where a forest-crowned promon- 
tory runs down to the river line, and 
declines so far as to give a mooring-place 
for the river steamboats. This has long 
been the residence of the de Lotbinieres, 
the seigneurs of the county of that name. 

There is a Pointe-aux-Trembles (en bas) 
and a Pointe-aux-Trembles (en haut). The 
former, which was the scene of Arnold's 
encampment, is situated on the river line 
about eight miles from Pont Rouge station. 



88 LITERARY NOTES. 

To reach it by land from Quebec, one takes 
as the shortest route the highway that runs 
through St. Augustine; and no more beauti- 
ful drive can be imagined. 

'' Ho, here's to Napier's frigate." — At 
the foot of what were known in those days 
as the Richelieu Rapids, but which have 
since been removed by blasting, Carleton 
met Captain Napier in his sloop of war. 
Being received on board, the governor at 
once proceeded from Point Platon, past 
Pointe-aux-Trembles, to Quebec, where he 
arrived on Sunday afternoon, the 19th of 
November. 

^' And if the Neptune's time-worn 
walls." — The Neptune Inn was an old cafe 
or restaurant in the building so long occu- 
pied by the Clironicle Printing Offices. It 
has again been opened as a hostelry and 
club-house. In 1759 the building was in the 
possession of Jean Tache, though there is 
no historic warrant for the poetic license 
which represents the "honliomme Tache" as 
the landlord of a hotel in lower town at the 
time of the Montgomery siege. The efRgy 
of the sea-god with his tangled locks and 
trident used to adorn the facade of the inn, 
and in its restored form, as the home of the 
Quebec Yacht Club, it is doubly appropriate 
to have the emblem restored. In 1822 the 
merchants of lower town met one day in the 
front room of the hostelry and organized 
the Merchants' Exchange, the forerunner of 
the present Quebec Board of Trade. 

" Of his daring on Dead River."— The 



HISTOKICAL NOTES. 89 

Dead River is a tributary of the Kennebec, 
having its source on the eastern side of the 
boundary line near Lake Megantic. The 
Kennebec itself rises in Moosehead Lake, 
and, in its rapid descent towards Augusta, 
affords excellent water power. The tide 
ascends to the large dam which has been 
built across the river at Augusta. There is 
navigation below Augusta, and small craft 
can ascend as far as Waterville. The head- 
waters drain a region which may well be 
called the earthly "happy hunting grounds" 
of the sportsman. The lakes abound in 
fish and the forest in large game such as 
the moose, bear, and red deer. 

'' His cam.p at Spider Lake." — The spot 
where Arnold made muster of his men as 
they came out of the forest is still indicated 
at the head of Lake Megantic. A club- 
house has been erected near Spider Lake 
for the use of the sportsmen who frequent 
the neighbourhood, and whose operations 
have been celebrated in verse by Mr. George 
Flint, the pioneer of the district. 

^^ Nor least of all was Williams near." — 
Kingsford, the historian, says that while 
Arnold was crossing the river to reach 
Quebec, "one Williams ascended the pulpit 
in the Bishop's chapel and made a long 
address in favour of giving up the place. 
Colonel McLean, who had arrived on the 
12th, on proceeding to the upper town, heard^ 
of the meeting and entered the church. He 
caused Williams to discontinue his address 
and descend from the pulpit, and his appeal 



90 LITEEAKY NOTES. 

was effectual in preventing this cowardly 
advice being adopted." 

Of the names mentioned in the stanzas 
referring to Williams, three others at least 
are historic, namely Diiggan, the traitorous 
barber, Caldwell an'd Mercier. John Mercier, 
who seems to have been a friend of Arnold's 
of several years' standing, was the person to 
whom the latter addressed a letter, while 
he was on the march from Lake Megantic. 
In this letter his advance at the head of two 
thousand troops is announced, and a request 
made that the Canadian friends, for whom 
the expedition had been undertaken, should 
rally round his standard as soon as Quebec 
was invested. The letter was intercepted, 
the Indian to whom it was entrusted having 
either been taken prisoner or having betray- 
ed his trust. 

'' Is Bigot dead to live again?" — The 
sufferings, to which the colonists were sub- 
jected by the extravagances of this profligate 
ruler, have been frequently narrated; and 
no story in Canadian History is better 
known than that of the tyrannical exactions 
of "La Friponne," the general store and 
warehouse he had established within the 
precincts of the Palace, in order that his 
own coffers might be replenished from the 
profits. 

** Sir Guy has spurned the foe within." — 
The rapid success of Montgomery, as Ban- 
croft says, had emboldened a party in 
Quebec, to confess a willingness to receive 
him on terms of capitulation. But Carleton 



HISTOEICAL NOTES. 91 

ordered all persons who would not join in 
the defence of the town, to leave it within 
four days. And Kingsford adds: "One of 
the first items of intelligence Montgomery 
must have received was that the active 
sympathisers on whom he most counted, had 
been ordered outside the walls." 

'' The woods of Begon's Hermitage." — 
The story of the Chateau Bigot has given 
William Kirby and others material for the 
building up of a romantic age of their own 
creation in Canadian literature. There has 
lately, however, arisen a doubt in regard to 
the identification of the ruined Hermitage 
beyond Charlesbourg, as the country resi- 
dence of the profligate Bigot. A theory has 
been advanced that the material so finely 
spun into literary ware, has no other begin- 
ning than the confusing of the two names 
Begon and Bigot. 

" With a message scorned from Holland 
House." — Carleton had adopted a policy of 
silence towards Montgomery all through 
the campaign, even from the time he arrived 
before St. Johns; and though repeated 
attempts were made to get the governor to 
make reply, the letters from Montgomery 
and Arnold were treated with silence, which 
could only be construed into contempt. Here 
it may be said, that in nothing does Mont- 
gomery appear to less advantage than in his 
letters to Carleton and the citizens of the 
beleaguered city, as any one may judge by 
reading them in extenso from the pages of 
Kingsford. 



92 LITEEARY NOTES. 

" Or deserter slinking near." — Carleton 
was made acquainted of nearly every move- 
ment in Montgomery's camp by deserters. 
As Kingsford says, "The severity of the 
weather gave some encouragement to the 
defenders, that during its continuance no 
attack would be attempted, but news of such 
a design was brought in by every deserter. 
Vvhat particularly established this belief 
was the reappearance of one Joshua Wolf, 
clerk to Colonel Caldwell. He had been 
taken prisoner when attempting to save 
some property of the latter, who was owner 
of a farm known as Sans Bruit, some few 
miles to the west of the city. Wolf had 
made his appearance with a deserter with 
whom he had made his escape. He reported 
that Montgomery intended to storm the city 
and had promised them the plunder of the 
place as an incentive to their somewhat 
unwilling obedience." 

'^ As if their dargue was done." — It is 
but natural to find Maitre Thompson, a 
native-born Scotsman, using such an expres- 
sive Scottish term as "dargue," which simply 
means a day's work or a task to be accom- 
plished. 

'^ The marching out of Chambly, seemed 
a holiday begun." — The difficulties of Mont- 
gomery's position, as Kingsford says, must 
have powerfully forced themselves upon his 
mind. " However boastfully he may have 
described the force under his own command, 
he knew that it was so composed as to be 
entirely unfit for the trying duty of storming 



HISTOEICAL NOTES. 93 

the walls of the city. The garrison of St. 
Johns and Chambly had been a simple 
cannonade., and towards the close of the 
siege the men had suffered from exposure to 
the severity of the climate. The garrison 
of St. Johns had capitulated from the pros- 
pect of starvation, and from the certainty 
that no help could be given them in their 
emergency. The progress of Montgomery's 
force, from the banks of the Richelieu to 
its position before Quebec, had been little 
more than a military promenade." 

'* But once give Jones the signal." — The 
names mentioned in this stanza are all of 
historic origin; illustrating the loyalty of 
the French-Canadians to the British cause 
in the person of Colonel Lecompte Dupre, 
an officer of zeal and ability, who had charge 
of the Canadian militia, and who rendered 
great service during the whole siege. 
Chabot and Picard were the officers in 
charge of Pres-de-Ville, having under them 
a force of thirty Canadians, eight British 
militiamen with nine British seamen to 
work the guns as artillerymen under 
Captain Barnsfare and Sergeant Hugh 
McQuarters, of the Royal Artillary. Major 
Henry Caldwell, who had the provincial 
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel at the time or 
the siege of 1775, had served under General 
Wolfe as deputy quartermaster-general, 
Captains Mackenzie and Hamilton were 
in charge of four hundred seamen; Captain 
Jones commanded the artillery of the 
defence. 



94 LITERARY NOTES. 

*' One band approaching' from the 
Anse.'' — The name originally given to 
Wolfe's Cove, was the Anse au Foulon, the 
Vv'ider cove to the eastward, nearer Pres-de- 
Ville, being called Anse deis Meres. The 
origin of the latter name is easily traced to 
the grant of land given to the Nuns, which 
extends to the water's edge; the former 
meaning the "shore-line to the fulling mill." 

** For Barnsfare and McQuarters." — 
There is little to be said about these two 
brave Britishers who withstood the ap- 
proach of the enemy, save what is known of 
their bravery on the morning of Montgom- 
ery's death. It is but right that there 
should be some direct memorial of their 
daring preserved in the city they saved. 
Captain Barnsfare was master of a trans- 
port laid up in the harbour during the 
winter. Of McQuarters the following is 
selected from Overseer Thompson's diary;. 
"The sergeant who had charge of the 
barrier-guard, Hugh McQuarters — where 
there was a gun kept loaded with grape and 
musket-balls, levelled every evening in the 
direction of the said footpath — had oi*ders 
to be vigilant, and when assured of an 
approach by any body of men, to fire the 
guns. It was General Montgomery's fate to 
be amongst the leading files of the storming 
party; and the precision with which 
McQuarters acquitted himself of the orders 
he had received, resulted in the death of 
the general, two aides-de-camp, and a 
sergeant; at least these were all that could 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 95 

be found after the search made at dawn of 
day next morning." 

'' And Malcolm Frazer has betimes." — 
On the night of Sunday the 31st of Decem- 
ber, Captain Malcolm Frazer, of the Emi- 
grants, was in command of the main guard. 
Shortly after four on the morning of the 
1st of January, 1776, he perceived two 
rockets thrown up from beyond Cape 
Diamond; he at once understood that it 
was a signal for some purpose, and to his 
mind was so threatening that it could not be 
allowed to pass without notice. He imme- 
diately ordered the guards to turn out, 
calling the alarm as he passed through St! 
Louis Street. [This note has to be credited 
to Kingsford though it has been alleged 
that his dates are wrong. Montgomery was 
killed on the morning of the 31st of Decem- 
ber, 1775, as the monument raised to his 
memory in St. Paul's, New York, rightly 
declares.] 

"■ And in the Recollets' Convent."— The 
buildings of the Recollet Convent occupied 
the site now enclosed as the grounds of the 
Anglican Cathedral, Garden Street receiv- 
ing its name from its proximity to the 
gardens of the monks. The Recollect 
church was built on the site of the present 
Palais de Justice, having its front entrance 
facing Place d'Armes, with its spire in the 
rear. The Convent was a large quadrangu- 
lar building two stories in height, with 
rooms in it set apart as prison chambers. 
Within its walls as well as within the walls 



96 LITERARY NOTES. 

Of the Seminary, the prisoners of war taken 
iu Sault-au-Matelot Street were immured 
for several months. 

'' What, ho, they're past the Palais !"— 
Judge Henry has left a graphic record of 
the march to Sault au Mateiot Street. He 
was an eye witness to that part of the siege, 
being a stripling of only seventeen years. 
'• When we came to Craig's House, near Pal- 
ace Gate, a horrible roar of canon took place 
and a ringing of all the bells of the city, 
which are very numerous, and of all sizes. 
Arnold, leading the forlorn hope, advanced, 
perhaps, one hundred yards, before the main 
body. After these followed Lamb's artiller- 
ists. Morgan's company led in the secondary 
part of the column of infantry. Smith's 
followed, headed by Steele; the Captain, 
from particular causes, being absent. 
Hendrick's company succeeded, and the 
eastern men, so far as known to me, followed 
in due order. The snow was deeper in the 
fields, because of the nature of the ground. 
The path made by Arnold, Lamb and 
Morgan was almost imperceptible, because 
of the falling snow. Covering the locks of 
our guns with the lappets of our coats, 
holding down our heads (for it was impos- 
sible to bear up our faces against the 
imperious storm of wind and snow), we ran 
along the foot of the hill in single file. 
Along the first of our run, from Palace 
Gate, for several hundred paces, there stood 
a range of isolated buildings, which seemed 
to be storehouses; we passed these quickly 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 97 

in single file, pretty wide apart. The 
interstices were from thirty to fifty yards. 
In these intervals, we received a tremen- 
dous fire of musketry from the ramparts 
above us. Here we lost some brave men, 
when powerless to return the salutes we 
received, as the enemy was covered by his 
impregnable defences. They were even 
sightless to us; we could see nothing but 
the blaze from the muzzles of their mus- 
kets." 

*' They thread the Canoterie." — The Cote 
de la Canotrie lies at the eastern end of St. 
Valier Street, near St. Andrew's Square, 
v/here stands the depot of the Lake St. John 
Railway. The term Canoterie was given to 
the locality on account of its being a 
mooring-place for boats in early times, 
before St. Paul Street and St. John Street 
were connected by a properly laid out 
thoroughfare. As a street "the Canoterie" 
extends from Dambourges Street to SI. 
Valier Street. 

^' For flee they must the din declares." — 
In his description, Judge Henry says that 
from the first barrier to the second, there 
was a circular course along the sides of 
houses and partly through a street, probably 
of three hundred yards or more. "This 
second barrier," he says, "was erected 
across and near the mouth of a narrow 
street adjacent to the foot of the hill, whicli 
opened into a larger, leading soon into the 
the main body of the lower town." With 
such a description in his hand the visitor 



98 LITERARY NOTES. 

can readily identify the locality near the 
site of the Quebec Bank. "Here it was," 
spys Henry, "that the most serious conten- 
tion took place; this became the bone of 
strife. The admiral Montgomery, by this 
time, (though it was unknown to us) was 
no more; yet, we expected momentarily to 
join him. The firing on that side of the 
fortress ceased, his division fell under the 
command of Colonel Campbell, of New York 
line, a worthless chief, who retreated with- 
out making an effort in pursuance of the 
general's original plans. The inevitable 
consequence was that the whole of the 
forces on that side of the city, and those 
who were opposed to the dastardly persons 
employed to make the false attacks, 
embodied and came down to oppose our 
division. Here was sharp-shooting. We 
were on the disadvantageous side of the 
barrier, for such a purpose. Confined in a 
narrow street, hardly more than twenty feet 
wide, and on the lower ground, scarcely a 
ball well aimed or otherwise, but must take 
effect on us. Morgan, Hendricks, Steele, 
Humphreys and a crowd of every class of the 
army, had gathered into the narrow pass, 
attempting to surmount the barrier, upon a 
rising ground, the cannon of which much 
over-topped the height of the barrier, hence 
we were assailed by grape-shot In abun- 
dance. This erection was called the plat- 
form. Again, within the barrier, and close 
into it, were two ranges of musketeers, 
armed with musket and bayonet, ready to 



HISTOEICAL NOTES. 99 

receive those who might venture the dan- 
gerous leap. Add to all this that the enemy- 
occupied the upper chambers of the houses 
in the interior of the barrier, on both sides 
of the street, from the windows of which 
we became fair marks. The enemy having 
the advantage of the ground in front, a vast 
superiority of numbers, dry and better 
arms, gave them an irresistible power, in so 
narrow a space. Humphreys upon a mound 
which was speedily erected, attended by 
many brave men, attempted to scale the 
barrier, but was compelled to retreat, by 
the formidable phalanx of bayonets within, 
and the weight of fire from the platform 
and buildings. Morgan, brave to temerity, 
stormed and raged; Hendricks, Steele, 
Nichols, Humphreys, equally brave, were 
sedate, though under a tremendous fire. The 
platform, which was within our view, was 
evacuated by the accuracy of our fire, and 
few persons dared venture there again. Now 
it was that the necessity of occupancy of 
the houses, on our side of the barrier, 
became apparent. Orders were given by 
Morgan to that effect. We entered. This 
was near daylight. The houses were a 
shelter, from which we might fire with 
much accuracy. Yet, even here, some 
valuable lives were lost. Hendricks, when 
aiming his rifle at some prominent person, 
died by a straggling ball through his heart. 
He staggered a few feet backwards, and 
fell upon a bed, where he instantly expired. 
He was an ornament of our little society. 



100 LITERARY NOTES. 

The amiable Humphreys died by a like kind 
of wound, but it was in the street, before 
we entered the buildings. Many other brave 
men fell at this place; among these were 
Lieutenant Cooper, of Connecticut, and 
perhaps fiflty or sixty non-commissioned 
officers and privates. Captain Lamb, of 
the New York artillerists, had nearly one- 
half of his face carried away, by a grape or 
canister shot. My friend Steele lost three 
of his fingers, as he was presenting his gun 
to fire; Captain Hubbard and Lieutenant 
Fisdle, were all among the wounded. When 
we reflect upon the whole of the dangers 
of this barricade, and the formidable force 
that came to annoy us, it is a matter of sur- 
prise that so many should escape death and 
wounding as did." 

'' But Pres-de-Ville, I pray thee."— The 
exact spot where the barrier was erect- 
ed is immediately described in the 
Thompson diary, and gives no room for 
doubt as to its locality. " The barrier 
crossed the narrow road under the mountain, 
immediately opposite to the west end of a 
building which stands on the south, and was 
formerly occupied by Mr. Racey as a brew- 
ery." With such a description any visitor 
can readily identify the place of Montgom- 
ery's death as between the deeper crevice 
and the present Allans' storehouse, which 
was the brewery in question. 

'^ And when Montgomery's orderly." — 
The enemy having retired, as James Thomp- 
son says, thirteen bodies were found in the 



HISTOKICAL NOTES. 101 

snow, and Montgomery's orderly sergeant, 
desperately wounded but yet alive, was 
brought into the guard room. On being 
asked if the General himself had been killed, 
the sergeant evaded the question by reply- 
ing that he had not seen him for some time, 
although he could not but have known the 
fact. This faithful sergeant died in about 
an hour after. 

^^ A restive band, God knows how far!" — 
Mr. Thompson says that he never could 
ascertain whether the defection of Mont- 
gomery's followers was in consequence of 
the fail of their leader or whether owing to 
their being panic-struck, a consequence so 
peculiar to an unlooked-for shock in the 
dead of the night and when almost on the 
point of coming into action; added to which 
the meeting of an obstruction in the barrier 
where one was not expected to exist. As 
was afterwards learned, the men's engage- 
ments were to terminate on the 31st of 
December, and it was well known that Mont- 
gomery had had difficulty in obtaining a 
willing consent to his plan of attack. 
Montgomery himself has left this record of 
his men when he first took charge of them 
at lie aux Noix. "They are the worst stuff 
imaginable for soldiers. They are homesick, 
their regiments are melted away, and yet 
not any man dead of any distemper. There 
is such an equality among them that the 
officers have no authority, and there are 
very few among them in whose spirit I have 
confidence; the privates are all generals, 



102 LITEBARY NOTES. 

but not soldiers, and so jealous that it is 
impossible, though a man risk his person, 
to escape the imputation of treachery." And 
as Bancroft says, " Of the first regiment of 
the Yorkers he gave a far worse account; 
adding: ' The master of Hindostan could 
not recompense me for this summer's work; 
I have envied every wounded man who has 
had so good an apology for retiring from a 
scene where no credit can be obtained. O 
fortunate husbandmen; would I were at 
my plough again !' " 

And Bancroft further narrates how, "as 
the time for assault drew near, three 
captains in Arnold's battalion, whose term 
of office was soon to expire, created dissen- 
sion and showed a mutinous disaffection to 
the service. Montgomery repaired to their 
quarters and in a few words gave them leave 
to stand aside, saying that he would compel 
nc> one, nor wanted with him anyone who 
went with reluctance. His words recalled 
the officers to their duty, but the incident 
hurried Montgomery into a resolution to 
attempt gaining Quebec before the first of 
January, when his legal authority would 
cease." 








>i 






THE EARLIEST 
BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 






J. M; HARPER, 

Author of " Our Jeames," etc. 



DEDICATED 

TO 

PRINCE GEORGE, 
DUKE OF CORNWALL AND YORK, 

ON THK OCCASION OF 

Hls Visit to Canada 
In 1901, 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

The success of the first of these historical 
booklets which has now reached its third 
edition, has encouraged the author to place 
in the hands of the public another of the 
series. The plan of the present work, as 
of the other, is more for the student of 
Canadian history in his novitiate, than for 
the critic who thinks that everything should 
be written up to his high standard of liter- 
ary excellence. Indeed the verdict, on such 
elementary works as those of this series 
that is likely to be thought the most of, is 
the verdict that has been matured by 
noticing the character of the effect produced. 
If our young people are to become the pos- 
sessors of the true patriotism that comes 
from knowledge and not from unthinking 
excitement, the knowledge that begets the 
true patriotism, if it is to be attractive, 
must be presented, as is attempted in these 
historical hrochiircs, in the simplest phrase- 
ology and literary style. 



THE EARLIEST BEGINNINGS 
OF CANADA. 

Britain's claim to Canadian territory 
has been established by discovery as well 
as by conquest; and to John Cabot, the 
Venetian, sailing from Bristol under the 
auspices of the King of England, is due 
the honour of having set up on the 
shores of the western continent the 
standard of prior possession in behalf of 
England in 1497. 

The success of Columbus had hardly 
been noised abroad among the nations, 
when this naturalized citizen of Venice 
found his way to England with his wife 
and three sons, to lay before Henry VII. 
his plans in connection with transatlan- 
tic discovery and exploration. He was 
skilled as a chart -maker, and had proved 
his enterprise as a merchant, as well as 
his hardihood as a navigator, during 
sundry voyages in the Orient. The 



b EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

(late of his arrival in England is not 
definitely known ; but it is on record 
that he was permitted to lay his pro- 
posals before the King in 1495., and that 
he succeeded in securing his commission 
a year later. One cannot but smile at 
the manner of his arguments before the 
king, as the envoy of the Duke of Milan 
has reported it: 

"But Master John has set his mind on 
something greater, for he expects to go 
further on towards the East, w'here he 
thinks all the spices of the world, and 
also the precious stones, originate. He 
says that in former times he was at 
Mecca, whither spices are brought by 
caravans from distant countries. Those 
who brought these spices to market on 
being asked where they grew, answered 
that they did not know, but that other 
caravans came to their homes with such 
merchandise from distant countries, and 
these latter caravans again say that they 
are brought to them from other remote 
regions. And he argues thus, — that if 
the Orientals affirmed to the Southern- 
ers that these things come from a dis- 
tance from them, and so from hand to 
hand, presupposing the rotundity of the 



JOHN CABOT SETS SAIL. 



earth, it must be that the last ones get 
them at the north towards the west. 
And this he said in such a way, that, the 
king, who is wise and not very lavish, 
has put some faith in him. and is in- 
clined to fit out some ships for his use." 

The patent issued to Cabot gave him 
warrant to search out unknown lands in 
the north-western seas, to take formal 
possession of them in the name of 
England, to assume the responsibility of 
the cost of the expedition, and to pay 
one-fifth of the gain, should there be 
any, into the king's exchequer. 

The story of Cabot's memorable 
voyage comes to us almost in his own 
words, and is a complete refutal of the 
historical narratives that have given the 
honour of discovering the continent of 
North America to his son Sebastian. In 
the early part of May, 1497, the expedi- 
tion set out from Bristol with a com- 
pany and crew of eighteen men in one 
small vessel. " Having passed the 
western limits of Hibernia," as Soncino, 
the aforesaid envoy, says, *' Master John 
stood to the northward and began to 
steer westward, leaving after a few days 
the north star on his right hand; and 



8 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

having- wandered alDOiit considerably, he 
fell in at last with terra firma, where he 
planted the royal banner and took pos- 
session of the territory on behalf of the 
king." 

It was not until after the 24th of June, 
when seven hundred leagues had been 
traversed, that land was first seen. The 
exact spot of landing cannot now be 
ascertained, though it must have been 
somewhere near the eastern extremity 
of Cape Breton Island, if a map said to 
have been drawn by Sebastian Cabot, 
wdio could hardly have been of the 
expedition unless as a stripling, is to be 
believed. There is no authentic evi- 
dence, beyond Sebastian's own state- 
ment, that he shared in the expedition 
of 1497, and there are grave reasons for 
suspecting that the son, who afterwards 
made such a distinguished name for 
himself in other undertakings, was little 
inclined to make too much of his 
father's renown, while vaunting his 
own. 

After taking possession of the New 
Lands, as they were at first called, in 
the name of the King of England, ihe 
navigator made a voyage along the 



DISCOVERY OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 'J 

coast line of the newly discovered terri- 
tory, though there is no chart extant 
that indicates the direction he took. 
Soncino, who evidently had all he tells 
us about the expedition from John 
Cabot's own lips, says that Master John, 
as he calls him, had the description of 
the world in a chart, and also in a solid 
globe made by himself, from which he 
could show where he landed, and the 
lands toward the east which he had 
passed considerably beyond the terra 
prima vista. There is further evidence 
that it was the father and not the son 
who discovered what is now called 
Prince Edward Island, if that province 
and Cape Breton are to be identified as 
the two islands which the former is said 
to have seen on his starboard, as he 
turned his prow homewards from the 
extreme limits of his voyage, when his 
provisions began to run low. 

On his return much was made of both 
discovery and discoverer. The mer- 
chants of Bristol readily put their faith 
in the Venetian, as did also the king. He 
had brought back with him no tangible 
evidences of abounding wealth. But 
he was able to report that the lands that 



10 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

he had visited were temperate in cHmate 
and yet warm enough for the cultivation 
of silk, wooded w'ith deep groves of what 
looked like Brazil wood, and having 
sea-waters alive with fish of every kind. 
'' I have heard Master John and his 
comrades declare," says Soncino, "that 
there can be brought home from the 
New Lands so many fish that the king- 
dom will no longer have any need of 
Iceland, from which our greatest stores 
of stock-fish come." The king made a 
present of money to the navigator, and 
executed an agreement to pay him a 
pension chargeable to the seaport of 
Bristol ; and we are told that under 
circumstances thus improved the ex- 
plorer, with a vanity ill-concealed, at 
once assumed the bearing of a gentle- 
man, dressing himself in silk, and ac- 
cepting the courtesy of the title of 
admiral. With his globe and chart in 
hand, and making the most of his argu- 
ment that the wealth of the east was of a 
surety to be found by sailing westward, 
a second expedition was favourably 
discussed and finally agreed upon. ''His 
Majesty will fit out some ships in spring 
for the said Master John," says his 



ENCOURAGEMENT TO CABOT. 11 

friend Soncino, "and will besides give 
him several convicts. They will go to 
the new country, to make a colony of 
it, and by means of trading with it, a 
greater storehouse of spices will be 
established in London than the one that 
now exists in Alexandria." 

While the second expedition, consist- 
ing of six vessels and as many men as 
were willing to go, was on the way of 
being organized, its prospects were 
freely discussed in the public places of 
Bristol and London, where Cabot had 
been welcomed as the most renowned 
man of his day. The hopes of the nation 
were in a flutter over his discoveries. 
We are told that the chief men of the 
enterprise were of Bristol, great sailors, 
who felt at their ease about it as an in- 
vestment, since the voyage was only 
one of fifteen days and the storms less 
frequent beyond Hibernia than in the 
narrower seas nearer home. The ab- 
surdity of some of the fluttering hopes 
did not escape the humorous Italian, 
who has told us so much that is pleasant 
reading about his friend Master John. 

'T have talked with a Burgundian," 
he says, ''a comrade of Master John, 



12 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

who confirms everything he has told 
me, and wishes to return to the newly 
discovered country, because the Admi- 
ral (for so Master John already entitles 
himself), has given him an island. And 
he has given another island to a 
Genoese barber. Both of these gentle- 
men regard themselves as counts, while 
my Lord Admiral esteems himself 
nothing less than a Prince. I think 
that with this second expedition there 
will go several poor Italian monks who 
have all been promised bishoprics. 
Being a friend of the Admiral's, I am 
sure, if I wished to go thither, I should 
get an archbishopric." 

The second expedition sailed early in 
May, 1498, and as the charter says, it 
was under the sole command of John 
Cabot, none of his sons' names being 
mentioned. One of the six vessels was 
forced to put back to Ireland in a dis- 
abled condition, but strange to say, the 
records here fail us, and when we next 
read of the expedition from reports pub- 
lished some time after, the son's name 
takes the place of the father's, while 
only one voyage, the voyage of 1497, 
is spoken of, with the events, which 



JOHN CABOT'S SECOND VOYAGE. 13 

could only have happened during the 
second expedition, attached. In a word, 
the name of John Cabot, except as the 
father of the distinguished Sebastian 
Cabot, is not mentioned in any of these 
later reports, as the discoverer of 
America. We hear the last of him 
when he set sail from Bristol in 1498. 

The following may be taken as the 
record of the expedition of 1498, though 
it is culled from reports derived origi- 
nally from conversations with the son: 

''With a company of three hundred 
men, the little fleet steered its way in 
the direction of the north-west. In due 
course the navigators came to a coast 
running to the north, which they follow- 
ed to a great distance, and where they 
found in the month of July large bodies 
of ice floating in the water, and almost 
continual daylight. Failing to find the 
passage sought, they turned their prows, 
and sought refreshment at Baccalaos 
(Cape Breton). Thence coasting south- 
ward, they ran to about the latitude of 
Gibraltar, still in search of a passage to 
the wealth of the east, when, their pro- 
visions failing, they were obliged to 
return to England. 



14 EAELIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

" They landed in several places, saw 
natives dressed in skins of beasts and 
making use of copper implements. They 
found the fish in such great abundance 
that the progress of the ships was some- 
times impeded. The bears, which were 
in great plenty, caught the fish for food, 
— plunging into the water, fastening 
their claws into them, and dragging 
them to shore." 

Such is all there is to tell of the dis- 
covery of Canada by John Cabot. 
How interested we all would be if 
another of Soncino's quaintly written 
letters were to turn up to inform us of 
the final fate of his friend Master John, 
and thus possibly provide an explana- 
tion of the remarkable reticence of 
Master John's distinguished son in 
regard to the issue of his father's last 
enterprises. 



JOHN CABOT'S PREDECESSORS. 



Christopher Columbus has a claim beyond 
all others as the discoverer of America ; for 
if, before his time, there were traditions 
afloat about the existence of a western con- 
tinent, these traditions came to light as 
verified fact only through the enterprise of 
the great Genoese navigator. That his 
name should only be associated with por- 
tions of the continent he discovered is still 
a matter of historic regret, as it is of still 
more regret that no place "of importance as 
yet, by its name, commemorates the dis- 
coveries made by Cabot. That Amerigo 
Vespucci, the Florentine, should have had 
the great honour of having a continent 
named after him arose from the fact that 
when his book, describing his voyages to 
the west, first appeared, the continent had 
been for fifteen years without a name, and 
as no one undertook to refute the false 
assertion that the Florentine, and not the 
Genoese or Venetian, had first set foot on 
the mainland, the New Lands came to be 
known as America. That Sebastian Cabot 



16 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CAx\ADA. 

should not have contradicted Amerigo's 
story is as much of a marvel as is his 
remissness in other matters pertaining to 
his father's renown. 

The traditions which may or may not 
have reached the ears of Columbus, before 
he set sail in 1492, have now taken their 
place as authentic elements in the history 
of Canada. The story of Eric the Red is 
now recognized as the romantic opening 
chapter in the history of the era of dis- 
covery in the west. The story, as told by 
the author of this brochure in his History of 
the Maritime Provinces of Canada, is as 
follows : — 

" While the nations bordering on the 
Mediterranean were growing rich, giving 
themselves up to a life of luxury and ease, 
the Northern tribes of Europe were eking 
out a scanty livelihood from the fisheries 
off their coasts, and from the produce of 
their comparatively barren soil. The con- 
trast in the manner of living could not, in 
the nature of human progress, exist long 
among neighbouring races. The Northmen, 
desiring a share of the wealth of the South, 
turned their experience as sailors and fish- 
ermen to account, and became pirates. 

" One of these pirates or sea-kings was 
Eric the Red, who, after amassing con- 
siderable wealth, attained to some distinc- 
tion in his native country, Norway. His 
influence and wealth, however, did not save 
him from subsequent disgrace and punish- 
ment ; for, on being found guilty of an 



VOYAGES OF ERIC THE RED. 17 

outrageous murder, committed for a purpose 
repugnant even to his neighbours, whose 
only morality was a rude form of chivalry, 
he was heavily fined, and banished from the 
land. This took place in the beginning of 
the tenth century. * 

" Erie, thus driven from his home, 
embarked his family and movable property 
in three ships, and set out for Iceland, — an 
island well known at this time to the North- 
men, having been discovered by Gardar, a 
Swedish navigator, in 853, and colonized by 
Ingolf, a Norwegian, eleven years after- 
wards. Here he found a rude republic in 
existence, and a hardy industrious people 
labouring to develop the rugged resources 
which Providence had placed within their 
reach. But this was not the place in which 
a man of Eric's self-will and cruel nature 
could flourish, for, after giving continued 
annoyance to the inhabitants and authori- 
ties of the island, he was outlawed a second 
time, and forced to flee for safety to some 
less civilized shore. 

"Again the old viking set sail towards the 
west. The flshermen of Iceland, in their long 
voyages, had seen the high snow-bound 
mountains of a country near the setting sun ; 
and this knowledge was Eric's only chart, 
guiding him to the land which he named 
Greenland, and which he colonized with emi- 
grants from the island which had banished 
him. There for many years, he ruled as a 
king ; there he died. 

" Eric had three sons, whose names were 



18 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Lief, Thorwold and Thorstein. Chiefly by 
their industry and example, the colony of 
Greenland prospered ; but in them the bold 
restlessness of their father appeared in an 
oft-repeated desire to set out on some 
daring expedition. Lief, on returning from 
Norway, where he had been converted to 
Christianity, and whence he brought out a 
number of missionaries, learned that during 
a voyage to Greenland, an Icelander, named 
Biorne, had been driven westward by adverse 
winds, and had there seen the shores of 
other lands, very different in natural fea- 
tures from those around Cape Farewell. 
He at once set out to verify Biorne's 
statement. 

" Sailing towards the south-west, he soon 
descried the land mentioned by Biorne, and 
there disembarked with several of his crew, 
intending to investigate the character of 
the country thoroughly. But the periodic 
fogs, the scarcity of -vegetation, and the 
sharp, biting blasts which blew among the 
numerous icebergs clinging to the shores, 
cooled the navigator's zeal, and sent him 
back to his ship, from the deck of which he 
named the country HdJuJaud, — the land of 
naked rocks. This was evidently New- 
foundland. 

" Still intent on discovery, Lief sailed 
further south, and in a few days reached 
another land, flat in surface, sandy in soil, 
and covered with forests. This, which was 
probably Nova Scotia, he named Mavldand. 
Farther in the same direction, he cast 



EXPLORATION OF WESTERN LANDS. 19 

anchor off an island lying some distance 
from the mainland. With this discovery he 
was more satisfied than with the others ; 
for here he found the days and nights 
nearly equal, the climate mild and genial, 
and dew upon the grass, which tasted sweet 
like honey. Thence he proceeded across a 
tract of water, and arrived at a country 
intersected with rivers and numerous 
streams, where fodder for cattle was abund- 
ant, and the winter comparatively mild. 
Here he remained for many months to ex- 
plore the interior, finding grapes and wild 
maize for a plentiful cargo on his return. 
He called the country Vhihind, now Massa- 
chusetts, where both wild grapes and maize 
covered a large part of the country when it 
was first colonized by the Puritan fathers. 

" On Lief's return to Greenland, Thorwald, 
the second son of Eric, set out in the same 
ship, and arrived in safety at Vinland, where 
stood the huts which his brother had 
erected. In one of his expeditions towards 
the country lying north of Vinland, he and 
his companions were attacked by the abori- 
gines. Having been slain during one of 
these attacks, his followers buried him near 
Lief's huts, and returned to Greenland. 

" Thorstein, the third son, then sailed 
with his wife and a number of colonists, 
thinking to settle permanently in the 
country of Vinland. There he died. His 
widow, on her return to Greenland, married 
a man named Thorfinne, and induced him 
to settle in the land discovered by her 



20 EAKLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

brothers. Thorfinne wisely followed her 
advice, and became rich and prosperous. 

" Other voyages took place after this, for 
we are told that Eric, Bishop of Greenland, 
departed for Vinland, in 1121, for the pur- 
pose of converting his countrymen, who had 
fallen away from the Christian faith." 

Other traditions, more recent in their 
growth, support the claim that the country 
was visited by French sailors four years 
before the first voyage of Columbus, and 
that Columbus had heard not only of such a 
visit but was conversant with the story of 
Eric and his sons. Parkman also tells us 
that Columbus had learned from one asking 
to serve under him, in the expedition of 
1492, that Cousin, a navigator of Dieppe, 
being at sea off the African coast, was 
forced westward by adverse winds and cur- 
rents to within sight of an unknown shore, 
where he descried the mouth of a great 
river. There can be no doubt that the 
Breton and Basque fishermen were accus- 
tomed to make annual visits to Baccalaos, 
as the Cape Breton and Newfoundland fish- 
ing regions were called by them. There is 
reason to believe that the fisheries of the 
Banks of Newfoundland were known even 
prior to Cabot's time. They were at least 
frequented in 1577, by French and Spanish 
fishermen, as many as fifty vessels taking 
part in the trade in the years immediately 
preceding Cartier's visits. Early in the six- 
teenth century a sea captain of Honfleur 
and another of Dieppe had cruised round 



PRE-COLUMBIAN INDIANS, 21 

the Gulf of St. Lawrence, while Baron de 
Lery tried to make a settlement on Sable 
Island in 1578, leaving cattle there which 
were afterwards of service in keeiDing the 
colonists, deserted by De la Roche, alive 
until relief came from France. All these 
traditions, however, do not detract from the 
renown of Columbus, Cabot and Cartier, 
a trio of heroic navigators to be remem- 
bered with pride by every child of Canada. 

The Pre-Columbian Indians. The first of 
the great migrations into Canada ought to 
be identified with the general Mongolian 
migration into America from Asia by way 
of Behring Strait, though the discussion of 
the possibilities of its ever or never having 
occurred has no place here. When the 
French settlers took up the lands on or 
near- the St. Lawrence or the great lakes, 
they found small communities of natives 
scattered all over the country. The manner 
of living of these tribes, seemingly isolated 
from one another was very much the same: 
the fur-bearing animals of the forest pro- 
vided them with clothing and animal food, 
— maize, tobacco, and wild fruits being the 
principal vegetable products they could 
depend upon. These tribes had wider 
groupings into families or nations, of which 
the more important, found in what is now 
Canadian territory, were the Sioux, the Al- 
gonquins and the Hurons, 

The Sioux had their northern home along 
the Assiniboine and Lake Winnipeg. They 
included the subsidiary tribes of the western 



22 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

parts of Canadian territory, exclusive, 
moreover, of tlie aborigines of British Co- 
lumbia, the Eskimos, and the Beothicks of 
Newfoundland. Preceding these were the 
" very ancient men" or mound-builders, 
whose way of living can only be surmised 
from the relics dug from their burial places. 
These consist for the most part of speci- 
mens of rude pottery, some primitive con- 
trivances in copper, and a few stone 
implements evidently used in canoe-making 
and the pursuits of the chase. 

The Algonquins were to be found along 
the northern shores of the River and Gulf of 
St. Lawrence, around the Bay of Fundy, the 
River Ottawa, and the western shores of 
Lake Huron. They included the following 
tribes: the Bersiamites, Montagnais, Attic- 
amigues, Ottawas, Crees, Ojibaways, Chip- 
pewas, Abenaquis, Milicetes, Micmacs, etc. 

The Hurons occupied the peninsula 
bounded by the first three of the great lakes 
and included the Iroquois, the Eries, and 
the Neutral Nations. The Five Nations, — 
the Mohawks, the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cay- 
ugas, and Senecas, — were subsidiary cantons 
of the Iroquois, which as a distinct tribe 
was also divided up into eight clans, the 
clanship running through the five nations 
promiscuously, and confined in no way to 
the tribal limits. 



JOHN CABOT'S SUCCESSORS. 



Sebastian Cabot, the son of John Cabot, 
who may have accompanied his father on 
his first voyage of discovery, and whoge 
name has been erroneously associated with 
the origin of the second exiiedition to 
America sanctioned by Henry VH., was born 
in Venice. The exact date of his birth is 
uncertain. The first we hear of him is when 
he accompanied his father to England at 
the time when the discovery of America by 
Columbus was producing Its first excitement 
in Europe. After his father's death, he 
seems to have arranged with Sir Thomas 
Pert an expedition in search of a North- 
west passage, and in which he is said to have 
discovered the entrance to Hudson's Bay. 
There are doubts, however, whether such an 
expedition ever took place. His subsequent 
career was a cosmopolitan one. At the 
instance of Charles V. of Spain, by whom he 
had been made grand pilot, he commanded 
an expedition to South America. On his 
return, he was condemned to banishment in 
Africa, though it cannot be said that the 
sentence was ever carried out. Then he 



24 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANABA. 

offered his services to his native place, but 
was unable to make good his promises. In 
1546 he returned to England as promoter of 
a north-east route to China and improved 
commercial relationships between England 
and northern ports. Edward VI. granted 
him a pension for his services to his adopted 
country, and the bounty was continued by 
Queen Mary. He died in London, in the 
year 1557. 

John Verazzano, whose birth in Florence 
is dated 1480, has been given historical 
rank as the most prominent of Cabot's 
successors, having spent a very busy life 
as traveller, corsair and explorer under 
the patronage of the French government. 
His first great achievement was the capture 
of a treasure-ship on its way from Mexico 
to Spain, laden with the spoils of Monte- 
zuma's wealth, and his safe delivery of it 
to the King of France. His subsequent 
explorations of the whole of the eastern 
coast line from Florida to Newfoundland 
would have given more colour to the claim 
which the French subsequently made to the 
possession of the whole of North America, 
had the Cabots not been there before him, 
and had the honesty of his allegations not 
been impugned. Few of the Florentine's 
undertakings were above reproach, and it 
is not strange that there has been a long 
continued controversy as to the genuineness 
of Verazzano's letter to the king describing 
his achievements in the west. One of his 




o 

CD 

a* 

g3 






ft 

0) 



o 



H 



VERAZZANO'S CAREET5, 25 

last enterprises associated him with Admiral 
Philippe de Brion-Chabot, Cartier's friend, 
and some of the prominent merchants of St. 
Malo. In 1527 a company was formed in 
which Chabot was interested for the impor- 
tation of spices from the east. Verazzano 
was appointed commander of the first expe- 
dition under terms which did not preclude 
him from giving hostile attention to any- 
Spanish merchantmen that should happen 
to fall in his way. The enterprise was the 
corsair's last misfortune ; for he was seized 
as he was passing near the coast of Spain 
and executed at the little village of Pico, in 
New Castile. 

The romance of Verazzano's career has 
made a hero of him in certain quarters, and 
tradition has thrown the usual mist of un- 
certainty around the story of his life. If 
his own words are to be trusted, he was the 
first navigator to visit the shores of North 
Carolina, from thence, with varied experi- 
ences among the aborigines, passing along 
the shores of Virginia and Maryland, enter- 
ing the Bays of New York and Narragansett, 
the surf-beaten rocks of Maine, and finally 
visiting the resorts of the Basque fishermen 
in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. But as 
has been said, there are very grave doubts 
about the truth of this as the Smith-Murphy 
controversy has revealed. Indeed, Mr. 
Murphy declares that Verazzano's letter 
could not have been written by him, that 
there is no state record of the King of 
France ever having encouraged the Floren- 



26 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

tine, that the description of the coast and 
some of the pliysical characteristics of tlie 
country he claimed to have visited and of 
the manners and customs of its inhabitants 
is false and evidently written by some one 
who had no personal experience of the 
scenes ; and, finally, that Verazzano, at the 
time of his pretended discovery, was actu- 
ally engaged in a corsairial expedition 
sailing under the French flag in a different 
part of the ocean. 

And whatever foundation there is for 
these allegations, the mystery of Cabot's 
taking off is repeated in the case of Veraz- 
zano. The record of his execution as a pirate 
comes from a Spanish source, while 
Ramusio, the supposed writer of his letter 
to the king, says that he was killed and 
eaten by savages in sight of his followers, 
though Parkman thinks that he was living 
in Rome at the time when Jacques Cartier 
was engaged with his explorations in the 
St. Lawrence. 



JACQUES CARTIER. 

In the year 1888, on the fete-day of 
St. Jean Baptiste, a vast assemblage col- 
lected on the outskirts of the city of 
Quebec, at the head of the first winding 
of the St. Charles, to celebrate the un- 
veiling of the Jacques Cartier Monu- 
ment, which had just been erected near 
the scene of that intrepid sailor's first 
winter encampment in Canada. It was 
a day to be remembered. It was the 
festival of the patron saint of the 
French- Canadians, as it was also the 
anniversary of the discovery of the 
northern part of the American continent 
by Cabot. It was a day on which the 
marvellous growth of things in the 
great Canadian confederation was to be 
witnessed, not only in the stretching 
panorama of the prosperous city that 



28 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

lilled the eye to the southward, with its 
busy havens and factories below, and its 
towering civic, provincial and ecclesi- 
astical edifices on the hillside beyond, 
but in the immense throng near by, as 
well as in the personnel of those who had 
been called upon to take a leading part 
in the imposing ceremonies ; for were 
there not a hundred thousand people 
present, presided over by the governor- 
general of a Canada stretching from 
ocean to ocean, by the first cardinal- 
archbishop who ever had ecclesiastical 
sway in the New World, by a Canadian- 
born lieutenant-governor, and other 
high dignitaries and officials of the new 
nation that had had its birth in 1867. 

The spot on which the monument 
stands still indicates in its natnra loci the 
reasons why the sailor of St. Malo chose 
it for his wintering station. Here the 
tideway is narrow, and the ebb, which 
always leaves a broad shore-line, show- 
ed him how far his little vessels, when 
anchored in the soft mud, would be safe 
from the ice dangers of a more open 
moorage; while the land position gave 
him isolation from the Stadacona 
encampments on the great plateau be- 



caktiee's encampment. 29 

yond. Besides, with the little mud- 
stained Lairet on the one side, and the 
St. Charles in front, it was a site easily 
fortified, and this was surely a con- 
sideration of no little moment for a 
colony that had to lay its foundations 
amid the uncertainty of a land hitherto 
unexplored. 

The leader of the band of colonists 
had been in Canada before, but it was 
only as an explorer and not as a colo- 
nizer that he had cruised around the 
shores of the open gulf. He had set 
sail on his first voyage in 1534 under 
the auspices of King Francis I. of 
France, having been selected, on the 
advice of Philippe de Brion-Chabot, the 
Admiral of France, as a navigator com- 
petent to face the dangers of the 
Atlantic, and brave enough to assert the 
claim of his royal master to some 
share of a continent which the 
Spaniards had come to regard as 
theirs and theirs only, though Columl^us 
had never ventured further northward 
than the Bahamas. Sailing on the 20th 
day of April, and returning early in the 
following September, Cartier had only 
seen the summer aspect of the country. 



3D EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

There had been little or no hardship to 
encounter. In his time, Newfoundland 
was no terra incognita to Europeans, for 
after Cabot's memorable voyage in 
1497, and Verrazano's expedition in 
1524, the valuable fisheries on the great 
submarine plateaus near the shores of 
that island had been noised abroad, and 
more than one Breton fisherman 
through hope of gain had found his 
way there. Besides, the visits the skil- 
ful mariner had made to He St. Jean, 
Miramichi Bay, Chaleur Bay, and Gaspe 
Peninsula, were more or less the excur- 
sions of a yachtsman who never loses 
the reckoning of a sure way back again. 
But now there were heavier responsi- 
bilities to assume. The company he 
had brought out with him, in his three 
vessels, was one in which an element of 
nobility w^as to be found, for, with the 
forty or fiftv possible settlers that had 
been induced to accompany him, several 
gentlemen of note, such as Charles de la 
Pomeraye, Claude de Pontbriand, and 
Phillippe Rougemont d'Ambroise, had 
joined in the colonizing venture, leaving 
behind them in France, when they 
sailed, the spirit of expectation in high 



cartier's marriage. 31 

places, which it would be all but a dis- 
grace to disappoint. 

On the morning of the i6th of May, 
1535, a special service was held in the 
Cathedral of St. Malo, in honour of the 
expedition which was to sail in three 
days' time. Officers and sailors were 
received by the bishop of the diocese, 
amid a pressing throng of the fellow- 
townsmen of the intrepid commander. 
He had spent forty years of his life, boy 
and man, amongst them. His grand- 
father had been a native and life resi- 
dent of the place, as had also his father, 
and the day was remembered when the 
youthful sailor. Jacques Cartier himself, 
had led to the altar Catherine des 
Granches, the daughter of the constable 
of the town, M. Jacques des Granches, 
who is said to have been a man of 
means, and a citizen of considerable 
influence. As a skilful mariner and 
privateersman Cartier had in course of 
time acquired some property of his own 
in St. Malo, having a winter residence 
in the street which ran past the Hospital 
of St. Thomas, as well as the chateau out 
at Limoilou in the outskirts of the town, 
whose quaint archway and enclosures 



32 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OP CANADA. 

had no doubt become, after the fame of 
his first voyage, as much an object of 
interest to the people living in and 
around St. Malo, as are its picture rep- 
resentations at the present moment to 
every Canadian. As a man of means, 
a skilful seaman, and a citizen of fearless 
integrity, he had gained the confidence 
of that high official, the Admiral of 
France, and even the ear of the king 
himself; and when the news spread 
through St. Malo that he had received 
his commission to make a second 
voyage across the ocean in search of a 
new realm for his royal master to 
govern, he and his companions had 
naturally become the heroes of the hour. 
And what a solemn service that must 
have been in the old Cathedral! Men 
bold enough to undertake the most 
dangerous experiment, with their own 
lives and the lives of others in their hand, 
and yet humbly submitting themselves to 
God as they piously besought Him to 
protect them from the dangers of the 
deep, and the uncertainties of a region 
yet to be discovered! At length, con- 
fession having been made, and a special 
mass celebrated, Carticr and his com- 



CARTIER VISITS BELLEISLE. 33 

panions left the sacred precincts, and 
with the blessing of the bishop upon 
them, gave themselves up to the final 
preparations for the sailing which took 
place on the 19th day of May, amid a 
crowd of anxious onlookers, waving 
their adieus. 

The three little vessels, — the largest 
the Grande Hcnninc, only of a hundred 
tons burden, and the smallest, the 
Eiucrillou, a mere pinnace of forty tons, 
— had hardly lost sight of land when a 
severe storm scattered them; l)ut so 
skilfully were they under control, so 
sure were their captains in their reckon- 
ing, that thev all met again according to 
agreement, in the passage of White 
Sand Island, the Belleisle of to-day. 
Cautiously hugging the for1:)idding coast- 
line of Labrador, even now so unlike in 
its character to its romantic name, they 
cast anchor for the moment in the 
estuary of what is known as the St. 
John's River of Saguenay, on the loth 
of August. Cartier turning to his cal- 
endar, found that the loth of August 
was the fete-day of St. Lawrence, and, 
at once calling the little haven the Bay 
of St. Lawrence, afterwards applied the 



34 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

same name to the wider sea outside, as 
he sailed across it in a westward direc- 
tion, past the great island of Anticosti, 
which for a similar pious reason he 
named Assumption. 

While at Gaspe on his previous voy- 
age, Cartier had entrapped two of the 
natives of that region. These he had 
taken to France with him, and while 
there they had been able to pick up 
sufficient French to make themselves 
intelligible. From them, however, 
Cartier seems to have kept the inner 
secret of his expedition, namely the 
finding of a passage to Asia, until he 
had passed Assumption, and when he at 
last broached the subject to them, they 
could only shake their heads and tell 
him of the great river they were enter- 
ing, whose banks rapidly contracted, 
until, many miles up, the way was inter- 
rupted by shallows and rapids. And 
the report of the Indians was soon 
verified by the freshening of the water 
as they approached the mouth of the 
Saguenay, and beheld the wide-spread- 
ing shore flats laid bare by the ebbing 
of the tide. Thinking for the moment 
to explore the great tributary current, 



THE OUTER ST. LAWRENCE. 35 

the navigator turned aside and came in 
sight of several canoes out hunting seal, 
which, at first fleeing from his approach, 
halted and drew nearer, when the voices 
of the Indians on board the Grande 
Hcrminc hailed them. After being 
hospitably entertained by the tribes 
around Tadoussac, and possibly warned 
by them against going further up the 
gorge of the Saguenay, Cartier continu- 
ed the ascent of the main river, and 
again came in sight of a number of 
canoes near an island covered with 
coiidricrs or hazel-nut trees. The sav- 
ages in charge of the canoes, were, it 
seems, out on a whale hunt, and when 
congratulations had been interchanged 
the Frenchmen were invited to share in 
the sport. One of the marine animals 
taken, which Cartier himself describes 
as being as shapely in form as a grey- 
hound, was no doubt the Beluga 
Catadon, or white whale, whose bones 
so often turn up in the post-pliocene 
clay of the St. Lawrence. On leaving 
the dusky whale-hunters, he w^as inform- 
ed of the existence of a large Indian 
settlement called Stadacona situated 
further up the river, near Ouebeio or 



36 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Quelibec, the narrow place of the 
waters; and he had not proceeded very 
far on his upward course, when he was 
met by the chief of the settlement in the 
person of Donnacona on his way down 
to meet the white-faced strangers in 
their strange-looking vessels. The 
chief, we are told, addressed them in a 
set oration, delivered in true native 
style with many gesticulations and 
rhetorical mannerisms. 

It was now near the middle of Sep- 
tember, and it behooved the explorers 
to keep their eyes open for a suitable 
place whereon they might build for 
themselves a station, at which they 
should test the rigours of a winter that 
bound all things up, as they were told, 
in snow and ice. 

Taking the channel between a long 
island and the northern woodland, they 
anchored near the shore of the former, 
which Cartier called the He de Bacchus 
from the abundance of vines that were 
found growing on its slopes, — a name 
that has since been changed to the 
Island of Orleans. The newcomers 
were soon engaged in exploring the 
tidal line for a site, and at last entering 



POSITION OF OLD STADACONA. 37 

the curving mouth of the tributary of 
the St. Lawrence, they selected the 
memorable site on which, strange to 
say, the Jesuits ninety years afterwards 
established their first mission in Canada, 
and near which the modern village of 
Stadacona now stands. As was his 
pious custom, Cartier named the river 
the St. Croix, — the day on which he 
arrived in its channel, the 14th of Sep- 
tember, being the fete for the salutation 
of the Holy Cross. The stream which 
is still spoken of as " the Little River," 
received the name of the St. Charles 
from the Jesuits in 1625, in honour of M. 
Charles de Boues, a benefactor of their 
order. 

The old Stadacona over which Don- 
nacona held sway was situated on the 
great rock plateau to the south along 
its northern edge near what is now 
known as the Ramparts; and on the day 
the French arrived, a friendly demon- 
stration was made by its inhabitants as 
they crowded out to the tongue of land 
now known as Hare Point. Donna- 
cona himself, however, kept aloof from 
the rejoicings, and the two natives, 
whom Cartier had taken to France, also 



38 EAKLIEST BEGINNINGS 01* CANADA. 

kept out of the way, as if repentant of 
their friendly relations with the French 
commander. Among the confidences 
between them and the chief, the ex- 
plorer's purpose to sail further up the 
river, even as far as the great Hoche- 
laga, had leaked out, and since such a 
voyage seems to have been looked upon 
by Donnacona as an indirect interfer- 
ence with his personal interests, he 
determined to throw every obstacle in 
the way of the venture. Even after a 
friendly compact had been struck be- 
tween Cartier and Donnacona's own 
subjects, and the two natives who had 
sailed with the expedition from France 
had returned to the ships, and every- 
thing was ready on board the Emerillon 
to sail from Quebec, the old chief 
thought to deter Cartier by pretending 
to call to his assistance the demons 
which were supposed even by the 
French themselves to fill the forests 
around. Dressing up several of his 
tribe as devils from Hochelaga, repre- 
sentatives of the great spirit Cudraguy 
of the upper St. Lawrence, he brought 
them into the commander's presence. 
But the drama with its blood curdling 



THE ST. LAWRENCE IN AUTUMN. 39 

whoopings, and its threatening antics 
was only a drama with Cartier, and on 
the third day, leaving his two ships in 
the safe-keeping of a sufihcient garrison, 
he set sail with fifty of his men past the 
towering rock of Quebec, variegated 
with all the deep-toned tints of early 
autumn. 

Those who have sailed on the St. 
Lawrence for miles, must have noticed 
the many stretches of shore line that 
have remained unchanged since Cartier's 
time, save for the cutting of the heavier 
timber. As one passes these stretches, 
it needs but little effort of the imagina- 
tion to picture the feelings of the 
mariner of St. Malo and his companions 
as they proceeded on their western 
course towards what seemed always to 
be in their minds, the great eastern 
continent of Cathay and its mythical 
limits. The maples were beginning to 
bespangle the woods with their crimson 
and gold, and the great oaks and birches 
and stately poplars were interlining the 
evergreen of the forest with a relieving 
streak of sepia. The majesty of the 
great stream must have been a continual 
source of marvel to the strangers, as 



40 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

new vistas of water and woodland 
revealed themselves beyond every curv- 
ing headland. Tacking- by day, and 
anchoring by night, the little Emcrillon 
fought its way bravely against the cur- 
rent, and half the distance between 
Stadacona and Hochelaga had been 
accomplished without mishap. But 
beyond the large treble-mouthed tribu- 
tary, now known as the St. Maurice, the 
St. Lawrence widens out into one of its 
greater expansions, and before the chan- 
nel was improved for vessels seeking an 
inner port beyond, the upper end of 
this expansion was interrupted by rapids 
impassable to a vessel of heavy draught. 
The Emcrillon was only forty tons 
burden, but Cartier thought it best to 
leave her at anchorage near the shore of 
Lake Angouleme (St. Peter) and pursue 
his investigations in the two boats that 
had been towed from Quebec. 

At length, after a thirteen days' 
voyage, the Frenchmen came in sight 
of the hill of Hochelaga. They landed 
at a creek which they called St. Mary's, 
three miles from the village itself, and, 
news of their arrival instantly spreading, 
crowds of natives, bringing with them 



HOCHELAGA PROSPEROUS. 41 

supplies of food, and other tokens of 
good-will, came from all parts of the 
island to greet the pale-faced strangers. 
And the reception which Cartier receiv- 
ed when once he was taken to the 
Indian capital, is as interesting to read 
as any story ever told. 

Hochelaga was only one of many 
villages on the island, as Cartier very 
soon learned. It was however the 
largest of these, containing about 
fifteen hundred people, and being the 
residence of the most influential of the 
chiefs. What tribe the inhabitants were 
of there is now no means of definitely 
ascertaining, since every vestige of the 
settlement had disappeared when Cham- 
plain made his famous visit to the local- 
ity in 1611. At the time of Cartier's 
visit the place was certainly at the high 
tide of its prosperity — as prosperity 
goes among the Indian tribes. The 
village itself was situated on a fertile 
plain with tillage carried to the very 
foot of the rising ground behind it. 
The pathway leading from St. Mary's 
was well beaten and ran easy of access 
through the level fields, that still bore 
traces of having yielded rich harvests of 



42 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

maize, and were bordered by groves of 
great oak trees as pleasant to look upon 
as any in France. On the way towards 
the village, the Frenchmen were met 
half-way by one of ithe chiefs, who, 
causing a fire to be lighted by the road- 
side, invited his guests to be seated 
around it, while listening to an elabo- 
rate harangue of welcome ; and as a 
return Cartier presented the chief with 
a couple of axes and knives, not forget- 
ting a crucifix which he hung round 
the swarthy heathen's neck and made 
him kiss. 

Then came the final march to the 
village. The place was circular in plan 
with a triple palisade fence running all 
around it. There was but one entrance, 
a gateway guarded by moveable barriers, 
while at intervals on the inner side of 
the wall were erected platforms, near 
which were heaped mounds of stones and 
pebbles as ammunition against possible 
besiegers. In the centre was placed the 
public square or assembly ground, 
around which were grouped the dwel- 
lings or birch bark houses. The 
wigwam of nomadic life had, for the 
time, given way to the tenement of per- 



THE AGE OF STONE. 43 

manent abode, for Cartier, in describing 
one of the houses, says it was a building 
of about a hundred and fifty feet in 
length and forty-five in breadth, con- 
structed of a wooden frame covered 
with great pieces of bark sewed together, 
and divided up into halls and chambers, 
for the accommodation of single fami- 
lies. Above these were arranged rooms 
for the harvests of grain and roots, 
while, within the groups of tenements, 
wide courtyards were enclosed and 
covered in, where groups of families 
did their cooking and lived in common 
during the day. It was the Age of 
Stone and community of property 
with the Hochelagans in 1534. Their 
weapons and industrial implements 
were made of the native rock, and, as 
Cartier further says, content to earn a 
living by farming and fishing, they 
made no account of the luxuries of this 
life, because they had no knowledge of 
them around their permanent home 
near the mountain. 

There was a hurried crowding of the 
villagers from all parts when Cartier 
and his followers were conducted 
within the central square. The matrons 



44 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

and maidens, with children in their arms, 
pressed forward to kiss the strangers, 
and, weeping for joy, besought them to 
touch the children by way of a blessing. 
Such men as these must be skilled 
medicine-men, the direct agents of 
Manitou perhaps, and forthwith the 
sick, the blind and the impotent were 
brought to the commander with the 
request that he would lay his hands 
upon them and heal them. And 
among these came old Agouhanna him- 
self, the palsied " lord and king of the 
country," who, approaching the com- 
pany of explorers on the shoulders of 
nine or ten of his subjects, took the por- 
cupine-woven wreath of royalty from his 
head with trembling hands and placed it 
upon Cartier's brow, beseeching him to 
touch his shrunken limbs and make him 
whole. Manitou was surely come. God 
had descended from heaven. The 
age of St. Peter and St. Paul was repeat- 
ing itself in the presence of the good 
Catholics of St. Malo. And what was the 
leader to do since the virtue of healing 
was no element of his piety? What 
could he do, but make the sign of the 
cross, recite a portion of the gospel of 



CARTIER ON MOUNT ROYAL. 45 

St. John, and with service book in 
hand read the "Passion of Christ" from 
beginning to end ? To the reHgious 
ceremony — the first Christian service 
ever held in Canada, — the natives 
attended with the stoicism of their race, 
and when it was ended made merry, 
Hke children, over the distribution of 
hatchets, knives and trinkets, and the 
flourish of trumpets that followed. It 
was a momentous day for Hochelaga, 
a momentous day for Canada. And 
when Cartier afterwards ascended 
Mount Royal and beheld the magnifi- 
cent view of hill and plain, of river and 
island, that spread out before his gaze, 
there was in the interest it excited in 
him and his companions a prognostic 
of the time when Mount Royal would 
give its name to Montreal and preserve 
in that great metropolis the prestige 
which once pointed out Hochelaga as 
the largest and most important centre 
of population in the country. 

When Cartier returned to Quebec, 
the nights were beginning to tell of the 
approach of winter. During his 
absence the men he had left behind had 
erected a rude fortification and sur- 



46 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA.. 

mounted it with some of the pieces of 
artillery taken from the vessels. There 
was no immediate necessity for the 
action, for the residents of Stadacona 
were peaceable and friendly. They 
were present in numbers to receive the 
commander on his return, and friendly 
visits were interchanged until winter 
came, between the little settlement of 
the St. Croix and the encampment on 
the hill a mile' away. Even in Decem- 
ber, when the eastern blizzards and 
piercing north winds kept the thinly 
clad Frenchmen within their camp to 
huddle round the fire, the natives would 
push their way through the deep snow- 
drifts to give greeting to the prisoners 
within, or bring them presents of food. 
At length these visits suddenly ceased, 
and Cartier was not to know the cause 
until the plague of scurvy had run its 
course through the Indian encampment 
and had made a prey of his own little 
community. This painful disease, so 
often spoken of as the sailor's malady, 
is induced chiefly by prolonged priva- 
tion from fresh vegetable and animal 
food. Emaciation, followed by loathsome 
skin discolourings and dysentery, ending 



NEED FOE A CLERGYMAN. 47 

in death from exhaustion, is its usual 
course; and when Cartier saw his com- 
panions become its victims day by day 
"his heart was moved with compassion 
and his soul filled with sore distress." 

More than once the navigator regret- 
ted that there was no priest among his 
band of pioneers. The natives of 
Hochelaga, as has been indicated, were 
ready to meet half-way anv missionary 
enterprise in their behalf. ' They had 
virtually used the praver of the Psalmist 
in Cartier's hearing, ''Cause us to know 
thy way that we may walk therein." And 
just as religiously inclined had he found 
the natives of Stadacona.- It would prob- 
ably be difficult to get them to give up 
their practice of scouring the woods for 
the scalps of their enemies, — for these 
emblems of torturing victory were 
common enough around their dwellings. 
But they had earnestlv desired to be 
baptized according to the Christian 
forms, and but for the insurmoimtable 
prejudices against a man, even of 
Cartier's orthodoxy, assuming the pro- 
fessional duties of the clerical of^ce. the 
sympathetic mariner might have follow- 
ed up his efforts as a lay preacher, by 



48 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

organizing a mission amongst them. 
All he could do, however, was to pro- 
mise them "a man of God" in his next 
expedition, and to continue to regret, 
on his own account, that no father of 
religion was near by to give consolation 
and absolution to his poor disease- 
stricken companions as they continued 
to die before his eyes. 

The day without hope had come upon 
the expedition. Even the lengthening 
days of February had in them no breath 
of spring. Twenty-five of the pioneers 
had succumbed to their sufferings, and 
the living left behind had barely 
strength enough to scoop out the neces- 
sary graves for them in the snow 
wreaths without. At any moment the 
Indians might descend upon the wretch- 
ed camp and make an end of it, as they 
had of the abandoned Petite H ermine. 
They had been seen hovering around 
as if to spy out the condition of affairs; 
and, to deceive them, Cartier had caused 
a great clamouring to be made within as 
of men too busy at work to give heed 
to anything without. 

At length a special and united appeal 
was made directly to heaven. They 







:3 
o 



o 

Q 

rO 



A SHORT PILGRIMAGE. 49 

would brave the spying of the Indians, 
and make a procession to the slope 
over which the great cross now extends 
its arms in front of the monument. Plac- 
ing the picture of the Virgin Mary in a 
shrine rudely constructed near a great 
tree, Cartier led his companions forth 
on the shortest of pilgrimages to salute 
the Mother of Heaven and to beseech 
her intercession. There was no priest 
to celebrate mass, as there was on the 
great day of commemoration in 1888, 
but while his emaciated and death- 
stricken followers knelt tremblingly in 
the snow in presence of the image, the 
commander read aloud the prayers for 
the sick and distressed, and extracts 
from the Psalms. It was a terrible 
ordeal for them all, and when young- 
Philippe Rougemont died that night, it 
seemed for the moment as if even 
heaven had deserted them. 

At last, one morning while walking 
by the river, Cartier, who had puzzled 
over the fell disease even to the point 
of holding an autopsy on poor Philippe 
Rougemont's body, was informed by an 
Indian that anicda was a sure cure for 
the disease which was threatening his 



50 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

camp with extinction. And what this 
amcda was the elated explorer was not 
long in finding out and applying as a 
remedy to his sick comrades. The 
medicine was a simple decoction of the 
leaves of a variety of spruce, and, as 
Cartier mirthfully says, so marvellous 
w^ere its curative effects that in six days 
the men had drunk "a tree as large as 
a French oak." 

When the advent of spring had 
thawed the icicles from the palisades of 
the little fort, hope had come back to 
the pioneers, though it was a hope that 
led them to prepare for their return 
voyage to France. The marvellous tales 
they had heard from the natives of a 
land abounding in gold and precious 
stones that lay beyond Hochelaga, had 
no influence with men who had endured 
so much in one season. The coloniza- 
tion of the country was only for an 
expedition better equipped than theirs 
had been. Such an expedition might 
be arranged for next year. In the 
meantime the summer scents of la belle 
Franee was what they longed for, and 
the sooner the return voyage began the 
better. 



CARTIER RETURNS. 51 

Even Cartier himself made no effort 
to delay the return to France. The 
rivers teemed with fish and the forest 
with fur-bearing animals, and here and 
there patches of fertility were to be seen 
in the meadows and around the Indian 
clearings ; but all these sources of wealth 
would keep, and hence he encouraged 
his followers to have everything ready 
for the return voyage on the 6th of 
May. On Holy Rood Day he set up a 
cross, with some show of ceremony, 
and to it afftxed the superscription, in 
Latin, "Francis I. reigns King of the 
French, by the grace of God." 

The last incident of this memorable 
winter's sojourn in New France, throws 
an unfavorable light, it is thought, upon 
the integrity of the commander. Don- 
nacona and his subjects had told him 
many marvellous stories about the 
wealth of the country far to the west, 
and Cartier, no doubt anxious that his 
royal master should hear these tales di- 
rectly corrt)borated, determined to seize 
the old chief and carry him to France ac- 
companied by one or two of his tribes- 
men. In pursuance of this object he caus- 
ed the king of Stadacdna to be seized and 



52 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

carried on board just as the vessels 
were weighing anchor, resisting the 
piteous importunities of the natives, as 
they crowded on the shore and offered 
ransom for their ruler. But when it is 
known that Donnacona himself assured 
his subjects, as they -persevered in fol- 
lowing up with their canoes the 
departing vessels as far as the lie aiix 
Condrcs, that he was willing to go and 
would assuredly return to them, 
Cartier's conduct may be somewhat ex- 
cused. Indeed, before the Frenchmen 
left with their captives, the tribesmen of 
Stadacona made peace with the com- 
mander, and, as a free gift, presented 
him with the ransom they had offered 
for their king, consisting of .valuable 
bundles of beaver skins, a great wam- 
pum belt, and a red copper knife from 
the Saguenay. 

Thus ended Cartier's second voyage. 
Though unpropitious weather detained 
him at the mouth of the river and in the 
gulf, he was able to visit Gaspe again, 
and greet the great cross he had set up 
the year before. He also visited Brion 
Island of the Magdalen group, and 
explored the southern coast of New- 



cartier's first voyage. 53 

foundland. Finally he left Cape Race 
on the 1 6th of June, and, after an un- 
eventful voyage across the Atlantic, 
arrived at St. Malo on the first of July, 
1536. 

Cartier's First Voyage liad taken place 
a year before the date of the above 
recorded expedition and ten years after 
John Verazzano, the Florentine navigator, 
had by his alleged transatlantic discover- 
ies under the auspices of Francis I. given 
the French a seeming claim to the contin- 
ent of America. During these ten years 
the wars in which France was engaged 
made the corsair's occupation a busy and 
remunerative one ; and it was only when 
the Treaty of Cambrai brought about peace 
that the navigators of the period, with their 
occupation as privateersmen virtually gone, 
turned their attention to schemes of ex- 
ploration beyond the seas, in the territory 
which had been called since Cabot's time the 
New Lands. As one of these sons of 
hardihood, Cartier had made friends with 
Philippe de Brion-Chabot, the Admiral of 
France and boon com_panion of the king, 
and, when the war came to an end, he had, 
through such a prominent courtier, suffi- 
cient influence at court to secure a commis- 
sion to follow up Verazzano's explorations. 

He received such a commission in 1533, 
and set sail on the 20th of April, 1534. The 
voyage across was a speedy one, since he 



54 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

reached Cape Bonavista on the 10th of May. 
The command included two vessels of fifty 
tons each and a company of one hundred 
and sixty-two men. After a delay of ten 
days, the explorers sailed northwards to 
the Island of Birds, where they amused 
themselves by firing into the thick fiocks of 
sea-fowl, and by watching a large bear as 
it fearlessly swam out to devour the vic- 
tim.s. But sterner work w?s in store for 
them, when the ice baffled their attempts to 
enter the Straits of Belleisle, and drove 
them to take doubtful shelter in one of the 
small harbours of the Labrador coast, which 
Cartier, in honour of the most westerly sea- 
port of France, named Port Brest. The 
fact that Port Brest was visited by a trad- 
ing vessel from Rochelle, while Cartier's 
exploring parties were investigating the 
neighbouring shores, goes to show that the 
St. Malo navigator was as yet in no un- 
known land. Even from the days of 
Cabot, fishermen were to be found on the 
great fishing grounds of the Banks of New- 
foundland, as may be read of, on another 
page. 

With the aid of a map, the reader can 
follow with increasing interest the course 
pursued by Cartier after he had passed 
through the straits to the open gulf be- 
yond. His exploring parties had located 
and named several of the small harbours 
on the Labrador coast, such as St. Anthony, 
St. Servans, and St. John River ; but the 
reports brought back from these places 



CARTIER IN THE GULF. 55 

were all of the same kind : " The land was 
so forbidding in its appearance that it could 
hardly be other than the land allotted to 
Cain." The explorers reported that the 
country was not uninhabited, but the sav- 
ages they had caught sight of were said to 
be so "wild and unruly, hailing from the 
mainland out of warmer regions," as to be 
altogether unworthy closer attention. 

The first object of interest, after the ex- 
plorers had sailed from Port Brest, past 
Point Rich and Cape Aiguille, was the Bird 
Rocks which lie to the north-east of the 
Magdalen group, and whose steep whitened 
sea-walls, the home of the ganet and gull, 
continue to excite the attention of the pass- 
engers of our modern ocean steamships, as 
much as they did the followers of Cartier 
from the poops of their fifty-ton caravels. 
Not far from the Bird Rocks is Brion 
Island — a name given by Cartier in honour 
of his patron, which still indicates it — and 
this the navigator describes as a place "six 
miles long, and full of beautiful trees, mea- 
dows and flowers, though the shores are 
guarded by sea monsters with tusks as 
large as elephants." From Brion Island 
the explorers pass'ed to another island "very 
high and pointed at one end," which cannot 
but be identified as the Prince Edward 
Island of to-day ; and the yachtsman who 
has lingered in sight of the sand-dunes and 
sheltering bays, in the safe waters of the 
north shore of that province, can bear wit- 
ness to the terrorless nature of the scene. 



56 EAKL1E8T BEGINNINGS OF CANADA, 

It was not until the vessels had anchored 
in Miramichi Bay (Bay of Boats) that there 
seemed to be any danger. Here the native 
Micmacs came out in a great fleet of canoes, 
and crowded around the new comers so im- 
pedingly, that Cartier had to fire a cannon 
to keep them at a safe distance. On the 
8th of July, the two little vessels entered 
the wide mouth of the Bay Chaleur, and 
when they had crossed to the other side, 
the explorers again made acquaintance with 
the aborigines, though these were less 
threatening in their attitude, and evidently 
belonged to a different tribe. But Chaleur 
Bay gave as little evidence of its being a 
possible channel through the land to the 
longed-for Cathay as had the Bay of Boats; 
and when anchorage had been found near 
the entrance to Gaspe Basin, the mariner of 
St. Malo, being now, at least, where no 
European had ever been before, decided to 
take possession of the only prize within 
his reach. Cathay with its fabulous re- 
sources, or even the way to it, was little 
likely to be found during what there was 
left of the summer months, and it was time 
for the grateful commander to be doing 
som_ething for his royal master. There was 
only one prize to be had, and rough and 
valueless as it seemed, there was nothing 
left for him but to take possession of it in 
the name of Francis I. of France. 

The day on which the ceremony took 
place was the 24th of July. A large white 
cross, thirty feet high, with a shield at- 



CAKTIER CLAIMS THE COUNTRY. 57 

taclied, was erected in presence of the ships' 
crews and tlie assembled natives. The 
escutcheon had engraved upon it the fleur- 
de-lis (the blossom emblem of France) and 
the words " Vive le Roi de Prance." When 
the cross was firmly placed, the French- 
men knelt around it, and with an "Ave" 
from the lips of their leader, laid claim to 
the territory near and beyond, in the name 
of their king and country. The ceremony 
was so simple and unmistakable in its sig- 
nificance, that the natives knew enough of 
it to protest against the taking of their 
country from them. Even the old chief, 
accompanied by his two sons, seconded the 
protest in person on board of Cartier's ves- 
sel. We are not told how Cartier replied 
to the protest, but 'his followers set them- 
selves to appease the father by decorating 
the sons with white shirts, coloured jerseys, 
and red caps, flinging around their necks 
glittering brass chains and amusing them 
in sundry other ways. The effect produced 
seemed to please alike the old corsair of 
St. Malo, and the Souriquois chief. Indeed 
the boys were so taken with their new 
friends that they elected to remain with 
them for the night while their fathers went 
on shore, and when Cartier set sail next 
morning two specimens of " native flesh 
and blood" were safe on their way to France 
as presents for His Most Gracious Majesty 
the King. 

That is all that came of Cartier's first 
voyage. The route to the Orient by the 



58 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

west had not been discovered ; nor did the 
navigator find out till afterwards how near 
he had been to the mouth of the great river 
it was his to navigate in the subsequent 
year, and in connection with which his 
name has com.e to be immortalized in the 
history Of Canada. 

Cartier's Third Voyage is the prelude 
to Roberval's attempt at colonization at 
Cap Rouge in 1542. Five years had gone 
by since Cartier's return from his second 
voyage. As a cause for this, some have 
blamed the St. Malo navigator for having 
circulated a poor report of the country, yet 
unappeased cupidity on the part of king 
and courtiers had perhaps more to do with 
the neglect than anything else. The way 
to the east had not been found by way of 
the west, and no treasures of gold and pre- 
cious stones had made up for the mishap. 

The king, however, was at last roused to 
listen again to his master pilot and his 
patrons. On the 15th of January, 1540, Jean 
Prangois de la Roche, Sieur de Roberval, a 
nobleman of Picardy, was created Viceroy 
and Lieutenant-General of Canada, Hoche- 
laga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belleisle, 
Labrador and Baccalaos. These names are 
significant. Cartier had evidently not lost 
heart, and the news soon reacihed St. Malo 
that he had been appointed captain-general 
and master pilot of the expedition to fol- 
lovv^. For this expedition five vessels were 
soon on the stocks at St. Malo, built with 



CARTIEU'S EETURX TO CANADA. 59 

the approval of king and viceroy and under 
the eye of the captain-general. The object 
of the voyage is expressly given in the 
words of the report, namely, that " they 
might discover more than was done in some 
voyages, and attain if possible to a know- 
ledge of the country of the Saguenay, 
whereof the people brought by Cartier, as is 
declared, mentioned to the king tliat there 
were great riches and very good lands." 

Only three of the ships would be ready, 
it seems, to sail early in May and the king, 
impatient at the delay — for in the light of 
the Pope's Bull which granted all America 
to the Spaniards, there had been some in- 
ternational trouble over the matter — order- 
ed Roberval to send Cartier forward at once. 
Cartier thereupon set sail on May 23rd, 1541. 
His intention was to visit Stadacona and 
the St. Croix again for purposes of settle- 
ment as well as exploration. But the de- 
lays of his departure pursued him. Storms 
beset every mile of his way across the 
ocean, and over three months had passed 
before he could make the turn of the chan- 
nel past the Island of Bacchus, or hold his 
first reception with the natives as they 
crowded round his ships to hear of their 
chief Donnacona and the others. Cartier 
had to tell them that Donnacona was dead, 
but, to appease with a subterfuge, he led 
them to infer that the others were doing 
well and living luxuriously in Prance, 
whereas all of them had died except one 
little girl. Agona, the new chief, pretend- 



60 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

ing to believe all that Cartier told them, 
took the leather crown or Indian fillet from 
his own head and placed it on the head of 
the captain-general, adorning at the same 
time his wrists with bracelets. Tliere 
were some acclamations of joy during the 
ceremony, but reciprocal distrust found its 
way alike into the 'heart of savages and 
Frenchmen, and, in view of such, there was 
nothing strange in Cartier's selecting an- 
other site for a wintering encampment fur- 
ther up the river, away from Stadacona. 

Sailing up the St. Lawrence one still sees, 
nine miles from Quebec, a strange-looking 
gap in the river's northern bank. Through 
the gap tliere is an entrance to the valley 
of the St. Charles so well defined that many 
believe that the St. Lawrence must have 
passed that way in prehistoric times. Be 
this as it may, the north-eastern embank- 
ment presents almost as prepossessing a 
site for a city as Cape Diamond itself, and 
no doubt Cartier saw its suitableness as 
such when he sailed up the river away from 
his former allies. With a fort above and a 
fort below, there was ample safety for his 
encampment, until Roberval should appear 
upon the scene and the buildings for the 
proposed capital were fairly under way. 

For the first day or two there was very 
little done. The tropical heat of August 
was not favourable to hard work, and the 
pioneers gave themselves up to little ex- 
ploration parties in search of what was in 
everyone's mind, the riches of the East, 



CHAKLESBOURG ROYAL. 61 

The irregular quartz crystals found in the 
surface deposits of the cliff and the yellow 
scales of pyrites found in the slaty forma- 
tions fostered in them the notion that such 
a search would not be in vain. Even Car- 
tier was of the same opinion. And when 
the forts had been completed, the captain- 
general left the encampment in charge of 
Viscomte de Beaupre, master of one of the 
vessels, as he went off on a visit up the 
river to Hochelaga. 

The news of Cartier's third arrival in the 
country had already been carried to Hoche- 
laga, but when the explorer reached the 
place with the intention of surmounting the 
rapids above, under the guidance of his 
friends of Mount Royal, he found that they 
had been put on their guard against him. 
He was even told that their chief had gone 
to Quebec to plot against him with the 
chief of Stadacona. Under suc'h circum- 
stances he could only think of returning to 
Cap Rouge. To place a hostile tribe be- 
tween him and his capital would be sui- 
cidal. Before turning his back on Mount 
Royal, however, he is said to have sur- 
mounted the Lachine Rapids by careful por- 
taging, and to have reached the mouth of 
the Ottav/a. 

Meanwhile, what of Roberval ? Had he 
arrived at Charlesbourg Royal, as the en- 
campment at Cap Rouge had been named ? 
Before Cartier left for Hochelaga he had 
sent two of his captains back to France, 
and these had been met by Roberval in 



62 EAKLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Newfoundland on his way out. No mess- 
age of his superior officer's arrival, how- 
ever, could have yet reached Cartier's ears. 
The blustering winds of October were be- 
ginning to sweep across the vast expanses of 
the mig'hty river he had discovered and 
with which he was now becoming familiar, 
as he traversed it on his return, to meet 
his associate. What was to be the out- 
come of his present enterprise ? Would 
Charlesbourg Royal meet the same fate as 
the settlement at St. Croix ? Was there 
to be discontent or co-operation ? Was 
Roberval a man of whom to be jealous ? 
Would he be waiting at Cap Rouge to give 
him welcome ? 

There are two sides to the story of the 
quarrel between Roberval and Cartier. 
Whether they passed the winter of 1541 at 
Cap Rouge in the same encampment or not, 
it i^ in^possible to siy. They were certainly 
both in Ccinada during that winter, the date 
of Roberval's departure from France at- 
tested by the official record proving this ; 
and there could therefore have been no 
meeting of the two at St. John's, Newfound- 
land, — the one coming from France, and 
the other sailing for France. Roberval 
set sail from Honfleur on the 22nd of Aug- 
ust, 1541, and not, as Hakluyt says," from 
Rochelle on the 14th of April, 1642. In a 
word, Cartier and Roberval arrived in Can- 
ada the same year, and the story of their 
quarrel as told by Parkman and others is 
one of those myths which history finds it so 
difficult to miss repeating. 



CARTIER AND EOBERYAL. 63 

The fleets, as atte.^ted by lately discovered 
documents, are these. Cartier set sail on 
the 23rd of May, 1541. In the month of 
July following, the king complained to par- 
liament of Roberval's delay in following up 
his master pilot. On the 18th of August 
Roberval sent a message from Honfleur that 
he would sail from that port for America 
in four days, and the official record proves 
that he kept his word. Thus it is clearly 
proved that Roberval did not delay a whole 
year in joining the proposed colony in New 
France, but arrived at Quebec in the aut- 
umn of 1541, sending from that place two 
of his vessels back to France, as Cartier 
had done a month or so earlier. Whether 
he was at Cap Rouge when Cartier returned 
from his visit up the river or not cannot 
now be known. There is no evidence, 
however, that the lieutenant-general anc 
captain-general had an open rupture, and 
the fact that the king subsequently extend- 
ed his favor to Cartier, is almost conclusive 
that the failure of Roberval's scheme of 
colonization was not to be traced to Car- 
tier's jealousy, but to the discontent and 
disaffection of the colonists. If there had 
been any foundation for the story, Cartier 
would hardly have been the man selected 
to go out on a fourth voyage to Canada to 
bring Roberval home in 1543. 

The fate of Charlesbourg Royal as locat- 
ed by Cartier is mixed up with the fate of 
France Royale, the name given to Roberval's 
settlement. Parkman takes for granted 



64 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

that the two places are one and the same, 
and locating them both at Cap Rouge thus 
describes Roberval's regime with a free 
pen : — 

" Roberval held his course up the St. 
Lawrence, and dropped anchor before the 
heights of Cap Rouge. His company land- 
ed; there were bivouacs along the strand, 
a hubbub of pick and spade, axe, saw and 
hammer ; and soon in the wilderness up 
rose a goodly structure, half barrack, half 
castle, with two towers, two spacious halls, 
a kitchen, chambers, store-rooms, work- 
shops, cellars, garrets, a well, an oven and 
two water-mills. It stood on that bold 
acclivity Where Cartier had before en- 
trenched himself, the St. Lawrence in front, 
and, on the right, the river of Cap Rouge. 
Here all the colony housed under the same 
roof, like one of the experimental communi- 
ties of recent days, — officers, soldiers, no- 
bles, artisans, labourers, and convicts, with 
the women and children, in whom lay the 
future of New France. 

" Experience and forecast had alike been 
wanting. There were storehouses, but no 
stores; mills, but no grist; an ample oven, 
and a woeful dearth of bread. It was only 
when two of the ships had sailed for France 
that they took account of their provision 
and discovered its lamentable shortcoming. 
Winter and famine followed. They bought 
fish from the Indians, dug roots and boiled 
them in whale oil. Disease broke out, and, 
before spring, killed one third of the col- 



SETTLEMENT OF CAP ROUGE. 65 

oiiy. The rest would have quarrelled, mu- 
tinied, and otherwise aggravated their In- 
evitable woes, but disorder was dangerous 
under the iron rule of the inexorable Rober- 
val. Michel Gaillon was detected in a 
petty theft, and forthwith hanged. Jean 
de Nantes, for a mere venial offence, was 
kept in irons. The quarrels of men, the 
scolding of women, were alike requited at 
the whipping-post, 'by which means/ 
quaintly says the narrative, ' they lived in 
peace.' Thevet, while calling himself the 
intimate friend of the viceroy, gives to his 
history a darker colouring. Forced to un- 
ceasing labour, and chafed by arbitrary rules, 
some of the soldiers fell under his displea- 
sure, and six of them, formerly his favour- 
ites, were hanged in one day. Others were 
banished to an island, and there held in 
fetters ; while for various light offences 
several, both m_en and women, were shot. 
Even the Indians were moved to pity, and 
wept at the sight of their woes. 

"And here, midway, our guide deserts 
us ; the ancient narrative is broken, and 
the lattei part is lost, leaving us to divine 
as best we may, the future of the ill-starred 
colony. That it did not long survive is 
certain. It is said that the king, in great 
need of Roberval, sent Cartier to bring 
him home. It is said, too, that in after 
years, the viceroy essayed to repossess him- 
self of his transatlantic domain and lost 
his life in his attempt. Thevet, on the 
other hand, with ample means of learning 



66 EAKLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

the truth afRrms that Roberval was slain 
at night, near the Church of the Innocents, 
in the heart of Paris." 

The last we hear of Jacques Cartier Is 
when he and Roberval were summoned to 
appear before the king, after Cartier had 
brought the latter back from, Canada. Ke 
continued to live in St. Malo until the da.y 
of his death, which probably occurred iii 
1555. 

Cartier's Successors. — Some two miles 
above the port of Dartmouth in England, 
as Anthony Froude the historian tells us, 
there has stood for centuries the manor- 
house of Greenway, on a projecting angle of 
land which runs out into the river at the 
head of one of its most beautiful reaches. 
The water runs deep all the way to it from 
the sea and the largest vessels may ride 
with safety within a stone's throw of the 
windows. Here it was, that three little 
boys, who were afterwards to have their 
names known as navigators were wont to 
play as sailors, — in the summer evenings 
doubtless rowing down with the tide to the 
port to marvel at the quaint figure-heads 
and carved prows of the ships which 
thronged it, or climbing on board, and lis- 
tening with beating hearts to the mariners' 
tales of the lands beyond the sunset. These 
three lads were no other than Humphrey 
Gilbert, his brother Adrian, and his half- 
brother Walter Raleigh, and it is just pos- 
sible that at times, they were joined in 



SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. 67 

their boyish expeditions by a sailor lad of 
the adjoining parish of Sandwich, John 
Davis by name. Of Humphrey Gilbert and 
John Davis, the early history of our country, 
even in epitome, has always something of 
interest to say. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert was born in 1539. 
From the famous school of Eton he passed 
to Oxford, with the intention of finally 
taking up the profession of the law ; but 
changing his mind, he entered the army and 
won renown in suppressing the Irish rebel- 
lion of 1570, was appointed governor of 
Munster, and had bestowed upon nim the 
honour of knighthood. 

But it is not in his soldiering that we 
read the romance of his life. His fate seems 
to have been solved when he put pen to 
paper and gave to the world a treatise on 
the Isicw Passage to Cathay, a subject which 
was engrossing the world's attention in his 
day. Nothing had come of Cartier's voy- 
ages save a definite knowledge that there 
was a continent to explore. The fishermen 
continued to ply their vocation at the ap- 
proaches to the gulf which he had explored, 
and the harbour of St. John's was beginning 
to be known as one of their places of rendez- 
vous coming and going. But there was 
surely something more than this to come 
of the New Lands. If there was not to be 
found in them any surprising wealth of 
silver and gold and precious stones, there 
was at least a pathway, to discover through 
them, to places where one could not fail to 



68 EARLIEST BEGINNJJSfGS OF CANADA. 

find these natural treasures. And when Sir 
Humphrey appeared before Queen Elizabeth, 
as John Cabot had appeared before her 
grandfather, the outcome of his representa- 
tions was very much the same; he was 
armed with a royal warrant to take posses- 
sion of any uncolonized lands in North 
America upon payment of one-fifth of all 
the gold and silver found in them. 

There was a heroism in Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert's standard of living strikingly ex- 
emplified in his memorial to the queen 
which closes with these words: — "Never 
mJslike with me for taking in hand any 
laudable and honest enterprise, for, if 
through pleasure or idleness we purchase 
shame, pleasure vanisheth, but the shame 
abidsth for ever. Give me leave, therefore, 
vrithout offence, always to live and die in 
this mind ; that he is not worthy to live at 
all that for fear or danger of death, shun- 
neth his country's service and his own 
honour, seeing that death is inevitable and 
the fame of virtue immortal ; wherefore in 
this behalf I despise either changing or 
fearing (nnitarc vel tlmcrc spernoj." And 
we know that these were no empty words 
but the creed of a brave man, who, while 
battling with the storms of the Atlantic, 
within an hour or two of the sinking of his 
vessel, could encourage his men by assuring 
them that they were as near heaven by sea 
as by land. 

As in the case of Cabot, we have the 
record of Gilbert's most memorable voyage 



SIR IT. GILBERT AT NEWFOUNDLAND. 69 

from one who knew him personally. The 
first two voyages he undertook, with Walter 
Raleigh as an associate, came to nought. 
In the third a fleet of five ships sailed from 
the port of Dartmouth, not without the 
foreboding on the part of the queen that she 
would never see its commander again. As 
a last favour she sent a jewel to him and 
asked Raleigh to have his picture taken for 
her before he set sail. 

As Mr. Froude tells us, quoting from the 
Dartmouth merchant who accompanied Sir 
Humphrey, the fleet consisted of the Ralrif/h, 
the Delight, the Golden Tlinde, the HicaUoiv, 
and the Squirrel, the first being a bark of 
two hundred tons and the latter a frigate 
of ten tons. " We were in all," says Mr. 
Fronde's eye-witness, " two hundred and 
sixty men, among whom were of every 
faculty good choice. Besides, for the solace 
of our own people and the allurement of the 
savages, we were provided with music in 
good variety, not omitting the least toys, as 
morris-dancers, hobby horses, and May-like 
conceits to delight the savage people." 

The expedition reached Newfoundland 
without accident. St. John's was taken pos- 
session of and a colony left there ; and Sir 
Humphrey then set out exploring along the 
coast to the south, he himself doing all the 
work in his little ten-ton cutter, since the 
service was too dangerous for the larger 
vessels to venture on. One of these had ■ 
remained at St. John's. He was now accom- 
panied by the Delirjlit and the Golden Hinde, 



70 EARLIEST BEOIAXINGS OF CANADA. 

and these two keeping as near to the shore 
as they dared, he spent what remained of 
the summer examining every creek and bay, 
marking the soundings, taking the bearings 
of the possible harbours, and risking his 
life, as he was obliged to do in such a 
service, in thus leading, as it were, the for- 
lorn hope in the conquest of the New World. 
How dangerous it was we shall presently 
see. It was towards the end of August. 
" The weather was fine and pleasant, yet not 
without token of a coming storm, and most 
of the evening had been spent in the Delight, 
like the swan that singeth before her death, 
in the sounding of drums, trumpets, and 
fifes, with the winding of cornets and haut- 
boys, and in the end of the jollitv with the 
battle and ringing of doleful knells." 

Two days after came the storm. The 
Dclif/M struck upon a bank, and went down 
in sight of the other vessels, which were un- 
able to render her any help. Sir Humph- 
rey's papers, among other things, were all 
lost in her, at the time considered by him 
an irreparable misfortune. But it was little 
matter; he was never to need them. 

The Golden Hinde and the Squirrel were 
now left alone of the five ships. The provi- 
sions were running short and the summer 
was closing. Both crews were on short 
allowance; and yet it was not without dif- 
ficulty that the commander was prevailed 
upon to be satisfied with what he had done, 
and to set' sail for England. 

The return voyage was inaugurated with 



A CURIOUS MO>"STER. 71 

an omen which the leader made less of than 
his followers. It was the age in which the 
new was ever being looked upon as some- 
thing uncanny, and we must not lose sight 
of the fact when we read that when the ex- 
plorers had changed their course on their 
way back to England, there passed along 
between them and the land " a very lion, to 
their seeming, in shape, hair, and colour; not 
swimming after the manner of a beast by 
moving his feet, but rather sliding upon the 
water, with his whole body, except his legs, 
in sight, neither yet diving under and rising 
again as is the manner of whales and por- 
poises, but confidently showing himself 
without hiding, in face of open gestures' 
from those on board. Thus did the monster 
pass along turning his head to and fro, 
yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demon- 
strations of long teeth and glaring eyes, 
and as if to bid farewell to those on board, 
ran right against the Hinde, sending forth a 
horrible voice with roaring and bellowing 
like a lion." In the minds of many of the 
crew, this was nothing short of a visitant 
from the nether world giving them a send- 
off presaging misfortune. Sir Humphrey, 
however, counselled them to look upon it 
as a good omen, though the after event did 
not bear out his interpretation. 

Had Sir Humphrey kept to the largest of 
his vessels all would have been well with 
him personally, but in spite of the impor- 
tunities of captain, master, and friends, he 
kept to the Squirrel, declaring that he would 



72 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

not forsake the little company with whom 
he had passed so many storms and perils. 
On the 2nd of September, after many days 
at sea, he went on board the Golden Hindc, 
" to make merry with us," as the narrator 
puts it. He greatly deplored the loss of his 
books and papers, but he was full of con- 
fidence from what he had seen, and talked 
with eagerness and warmth of the new ex- 
pedition for the following spring. There 
were some of his companions who believed 
that Sir Humphrey was keeping to himself 
some secret discovery he had made, and 
they tried hard to extract it from him. 
They could, however, make nothing of his 
odd, ironical answers, and their sorrow at 
the catastrophe which followed was sadly 
blended with disappointment that such a 
secret should have perished. 

When they were more than half way to 
England, a storm like unto the tempest 
which beset St. Paul at Melita, came down 
upon Sir Humphrey and his ships. Tossed 
about on his cockle shell of a frigate, he 
would sometimes pass near the fioldcn 
Jlinde and shout greeting across the stormy 
waters. 

" On Monday, the 9th of September, in the 
afternoon, the frigate was near cast away 
oppressed by the waves, but at that time 
recovered, and giving forth signs of joy. Sir 
Humphrey, sitting abaft with a book in his 
hand, cried out to us in the Hinde as often 
as we approached him : * Be of good cheer, 
boys, we are as near to heaven by sea as by 



THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 73 

land.' This he did not fail to reiterate, well 
beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, 
as can be testified of him. The same Monday 
night, about twelve of the clock, or not long 
after, the frigate being anead of tlie Oohlen 
lliiidc, the lights of the former suddenly 
disappeared, and our watch cried out that 
the General was cast away." 

Thus was the sowing made, without any 
immediate seeming of a coming harvest. 
As Froude says, such was Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, still in the prime of his life when 
the Atlantic swallowed him. Like the 
gleam of a landscape lit suddenly for a 
moment by the lightning, these few scenes 
flash down to us across the centuries, but 
what a life must that have been of which 
this was the conclusion. 

The Arctic Regions have a history of 
their own, drawn from the records of the 
various expeditions in search of a North- 
west passage, and extending from the days 
of Frobisher and Gilbert to the final success 
of McLure and McClintock. An old map 
has led to the surmise that Sebastian Cabot 
sailed as far north as Cumberland Island 
or Melville Peninsula ; but Sir Martin 
Frobisher may with certainty be looked 
upon as the first of the long line of Arctic 
explorers, leaving, as he has done, a geo- 
graphical memorial of his visit in the name 
of one of the entrances to Hudson Bay from 
Davis Strait. For fifteen years he laboured to 
find a patron, and when he at last succeeded 



74 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

in forming a company, he was able to count 
among the subscribers, Queen Elizabeth, 
who invested four thousand pounds, Lord 
Burleigh, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of 
Leicester, Sir Philip Sydney, Sir Thomas 
Gresham, Sir Francis Walsingham and 
others scarcely less conspicuous in that 
generation. The first expedition consisted 
of two small vessels. On the 28th of July, 
1576, Frobisher reached that part of what is 
now called Baffin Land, which still bears 
the name he gave to it of Mcta Incognita. 
Taking possession of this region, in the 
name of England, he gave orders to his 
company, if by any possible means they 
could ^et ashore, to bring him whatever 
they could find, " living or dead, stock or 
stone in token of Christian possession." 
Some of the men returned to him with flow- 
ers, some with grass, and one brought a 
piece of black stone " like unto sea coal," 
and with this as a specimen of the mineral 
wealth of the country, and with a captured 
native as a specimen of its inhabitants he 
returned to England. 

This piece of mineral finally saved his 
credit. Presenting it to one of his associ- 
ates, that gentleman's wife accidentally 
threw it into the fire where it remained 
some time when it was taken out and 
quenched in vinegar. It tnen appeared of a 
bright golden colour, and on being sub- 
mitted to an assayer in London was said Co 
be rich in gold. 

No sooner was the news of this spread in 



FEOCISIIEE SENT BACK. 75 

the right quarter than there arose an eager- 
ness to send out a second expedition. Tlie 
gold fever has never been difficult to stir 
up, and Frobisher was twice sent back to 
make further explorations under the auspices 
of gold-seekers, and with more than a 
hundred men to work the prospective mines. 
On the second voyage he secured about two 
hundred tons of ore, and on the third over 
thirteen hundred tons, but it was finally 
proved to be of little value, and the interest 
in Frobisher's enterprise soon died out. It 
is said that a house of stone and lime was 
erected at one of the summer rendezvous in 
which were deposited some articles that 
might afterwards lead to its identification. 

Subsequent to this, Frobisher was asso- 
ciated with Sir Francis Drake in his voyage 
to the West Indies. In 1588 he was knighted 
for services against the Spanish Armada. 
In 1594 he was sent to France to aid Henry 
IV., and while attacking that monarch's 
enemies at Croyzon near Brest, he received 
his death wound, of which he finally expired 
at Plymouth in the autumn of 1594, though 
he was able to bring back in safety the fleet 
under his command. 

The fate of Sir Humphrey Gilbert did not 
deter others from following in his track in 
search of the sea channel in the north 
which had foiled Frobisher's efforts. The 
sailor lad, who had possibly joined in the 
games of boyhood with the Gilberts and 
Raleigh in the neighbourhood of Dartmouth, 
had no doubt been influenced by Sir 



76 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Humphrey's book, when he made up his 
mind to set sail for western Greenland. 
John Davis has left his name to the spa- 
cious coast-water that lies between Green- 
land and Baffin Land. Sailing from Dart- 
mouth and entering by the route taken by 
Frobisher, he examined the " Land of 
Desolation," as he called the western coast 
of Greenland, and discovered a bay to which 
he gave the name of his early playmate, 
calling it Gilbert Sound. On his return he 
published a pamphlet in which he set forth 
the grounds of his belief that a North-west 
Passage existed. He made in all three voy- 
ages to the Arctic regions. He died at sea 
near the coast of Malacca in 1605. 

Henry Hudson is another of the many in- 
trepid sailors who have left their names as 
legacies to the Arctic regions. He had made 
a name for himself as a navigator years 
before he took charge of an expedition to 
the Arctic coast-waters. In 1608, he made 
a voyage to Nova Zembla, discovering the 
island of Jan Mayen so well known to the 
readers of the literature of Arctic explora- 
tions. Sailing afterwards under the auspices 
of the Dutch India Company he discovered 
Hudson River and explored it as far as 
Albany. In 1610, he undertook, under Eng- 
lish auspices, to follow up the discoveries of 
Frobisher and Davis, exploring Hudson 
Strait, and discovering Hudson Bay. The 
last scene of his life is a pathetic one. 

Three months had been spent in exploring 
the great inland sea which will always bear 



BAFFIN IN THE AECTIC BEGIONS. 77 

the name of the intrepid navigator. The 
grip of winter seized his ships early in 
November, and held them firm until the fol- 
lowing June, when, strange to say, with the 
prospect of relief before the crew, a mutiny 
arose. The explorer failed to subdue the mal- 
contents, who won over the majority to their 
way of thinking, and, finally forcing Hudson 
with his son, and six others, into a shell 
of a boat, left them to perish in the great 
unexplored waters of the north. Nothing 
was ever heard of them again, though the 
scandal of their desertion was made public, 
when the mutineers, after encountering 
great perils and privations, again set foot in 
Ens:land in 1611. 

William Baffin, another of the brave 
mariners who made their fame amid the 
icebergs of the Far North, gave his name to 
the great Arctic coast-water whose entrance 
is Davis Strait. Sailing further north than 
any of his predecessors, he affixed the names 
of the promoters of his enterprise, and of 
some of his personal friends to Smith 
Sound, Wolstenholme Sound, Cape Dudley 
Diggs, Hakluyt Island, Lancaster Sound, 
Jones Sound, and Gary Islands. 

Following Baffin came a long list of navi- 
gators, whose names are still read of in the 
pages of our geographies, such as Fox, 
James, Middleton, Mackenzie and Barrow, 
not to mention Parry and Franklin whose 
expeditions formed the prelude to the actual 
discovery of the North-west Passage by 
Captain McLure, The search for Sir John 



78 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Franklin, with the romantic interest that 
surrounded it for years, led to McClintock's 
rescue of McLure, and the exploration of 
seven thousand miles of coast-line along the 
northern limits of Canada, which the Cana- 
dian government will no doubt in time 
follow up. 

Captain James Cook, the celebrated 
navigator, whose life story is a romance in 
itself, has given his name to Canadian his- 
tory in more ways than one. Born of humble 
parentage in 1728, he was brought up in the 
Yorkshire village of Marton, England. After 
some years of experience as an ordinary 
seaman, he joined the navy in his twenty- 
seventh year; and had climbed up to being 
the master of a sloop at the siege of Quebec 
in 1759 under General Wolfe. After his 
fame had been established as the first cir- 
cumnavigator of the globe, he was engaged 
by the British Government to make sundry 
explorations, and among them one to 
Behring Sea, to solve if possible the mystery 
of a North-west Passage from the Pacinc 
side. The mysteries of the Arctic regions 
have always had, and still have, an attrac- 
tion for the fame seeker, and Captain Cook 
was willing enough to accept the commis- 
sion of discovery, which gave him charge of 
two vessels, the Resolution and Blscovcrij, 
and included instructions to examine the 
coast-line from the forty-fifth parallel to 
the limits of the north. 

As early as 1592, the waters between what 



CAPTAIN COOK AT NOOTKA. 79 

is now called Vancouver Island and the 
mainland of Canada had been examined by 
a Spanish sailor in the employ of the vice- 
roy of Mexico, — a visit which, though long 
considered apocryphal, has given the sailor's 
name, Jnan de Fuca, to the strait between 
the United States and British Columbia. In 
1748, Behring, the Danish navigator, under 
the auspices of Russia had worked his way 
from the strait which bears his name along 
the Pacific coast as far south as Mount St. 
Elias, the highest mountain peak in Canada; 
while Queen Charlotte Islands, Nootka 
Sound, and the mouth of the Columbia River 
had been located by Juan Perez, the Span- 
iard, and others. 

To the expedition of Captain Cook may be 
traced the beginnings of trade in this remote 
region which is said to have had the ele- 
ments of its earliest population from the 
Mongolian tribes of Asia. The weather was 
so unpropitious for exploration purposes 
during his visit, that he was unable to iden- 
tify the country around Nootka Sound as 
forming part of a large island. Indeed he 
went so far as to discredit the existence of 
the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and Queen 
Charlotte Sound, having no chance to hug 
the shore very closely as he passed north- 
wards to Behring Strait. 

It was on this the third of his greater 
voyages that Captain Cook was cruelly put 
to death on the Sandwich Islands, which he 
had touched at on his way home from the 
Arctic circle. While in the north, his asso- 



80 EAELIEST BEGIXXINGS OF CAXADA. 

ciates had collected costly stores of furs 
from the natives; and when, on their return 
from the south seas, after the death of their 
master, they spread reports of the great 
wealth that was to be had from sea and 
land in the regions they had visited, there 
arose great eagerness on the part of the fur 
merchants of London to open up a trade in 
the Northern Pacific. Captain Cook's post- 
humous report was given to the world in 
1784, — a year ripe with expectations also for 
Eastern Canada in the Loyalist migration, 
and Nootka Sound soon became a mooring 
place for trading fleets from all parts of the 
world. And here it is in what has been 
called the " Nootka affair " that we may find 
the very beginnings of the political history 
of the great western maritime province of 
Canada. 

Among the traders who found their way 
to Nootka was one Captain Meares, a British 
subject, who had made successive voyages 
to China and the East Indies. When he 
arrived at Nootka in 1788, he set up a trad- 
ing establishment, erecting a storehouse 
and fortifying its approaches. The land on 
which he placed his trading house he had 
purchased with due formality from the 
native chief of the district, and the idea 
possibly never came into his head that there 
could be any dispute about his pronerty not 
being on British soil. About a year after 
he had left Nootka, however, Don Estevan 
M-artinez, the commander of a Spanish ex- 
ploring- expedition, arrived one day in the 



CAPTAIN VANCOUVER. 81 

harbour, and seized everything in the name 
of his country, confiscating the vessels, and 
talking into custody their crews. Such 
conduct was an outrage on the feelings of 
every true-hearted Briton when the news 
reached England, and a demand was at once 
made, at the instance of parliament, that 
Spain should give immediate satisfaction, 
by releasing the property confiscated and by 
paying an indemnity to the captive seamen. 
The demand brought Spain to see the right 
of the question. She paid nearly a quarter 
of a million of dollars in arranging matters; 
!nnd Britain, to close the dispute for all 
time, sent Captain George Vancouver out to 
arrange the final steps towards restitution, 
and to make a survey ol the whole territory. 
Vancouver's enterprise has been trebly 
commemorated in the west, by his name 
being attached to the island he explored, to 
the town on the Columbia in Washington 
Territory, and to the growing emporium in 
the New Westminster District, British 
Columbia. The survey which was placed in 
his charge led to a close examination of the 
whole coast line from the mouth of the 
Columbia northwards ; and, when it came 
to be completed, the idea that there was a 
sea-way somewhere leading from the Pacific 
to Hudson Bay was given its quietus. 
Further than this, however, and the meting 
out of justice to the traders of Nootka, the 
visit of Vancouver led directly to no per- 
manent settlement of the country. Indeed, 
when we look for the earliest stages of 



82 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

colonial development in the west, we must 
follow the movements of the North-west 
Company and its rival and successor, the 
Hudson's Bay Company. 

Sir Alexander Mackenzie, whose name 
is attached to the largest river basin in 
Canada, was the first to make his way to 
the western coast across Canadian territory. 
He was a native of Inverness, Scotland, and 
while yet a lad entered the service of the 
North-west Company. He spent eight years 
of his life as employee of that great fur 
trading organization at their station on Lake 
Athabaska, where he conceived the idea of 
exploring the regions north and east of that 
remote inland water. To prepare himself 
for the work, he returned to his native land, 
spending a full year in studying astronomy 
and navigation, and supplying himself with 
canoes and companions. Previous to this 
he had followed the great river that bears 
his name to the tideway of the Arctic Ocean, 
and when he set out from Fort Chippewayan 
on the 10th of October, 1792, with his twelve 
associates and four canoes to find a way 
overland to the Pacific Ocean, he had an ex- 
perience to associate his name with, which 
few men of his time had. By June of the 
following year he was no further than the 
southernmost source of the Peace River. 
Portaging the height of land between this 
and what he thought at the time to be the 
Columbia, his canoes were launched in the 
waters of what is now known as the Fraser 



MAKQUIS DE LA ROCHE. 83 

River. From this he passed westward across 
the country and reached the Pacific on the 
20th of July. Returning to Britain in 1801, 
he immediately set himself to prepare an 
account of his voyaging, which he eventu- 
ally completed in a quarto volume of five or 
six hundred pages entitled Voyages from 
Montreal through the Continent of North 
America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans. He 
received the honour of knighthood in 1802, 
and died at Dalhousie, Scotland, in 1820. 

Marquis de La Roche.— The search for 
a North-west passage to the wealth of 
the east had finally no first place in the 
minds of those who sought to visit the 
shores of the New World. There was a 
wealth to share in, nearer than the east. 
The fisheries of Newfoundland and Cape 
Breton Island were in themselves a tangible 
inducement to the European merchant in 
his early efforts to colonize our country, and 
from the rich return which these fisheries 
gave may be traced the locating of perman- 
ent abodes along the sea-board. 

Before the sixteenth century was far into 
its fourth quarter there were to be seen 
annually around St. John's, Baccalaos and 
Canso, a fleet of nearly four hundred vessels 
engaged in the fishing business, and it was 
no unusual thing to meet sailor-fishermen 
who had been " across the water " thirty or 
forty times. Nor were these sailor-fisher- 
men long in finding out from the native 
tribes that a more lucrative trade than the 



84 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

curing of codfish, was at tlie merclaant's 
door ; and, when opportunity arose, they 
were often able to show specimens of the 
rich furs and walrus tusks that had bean 
bestowed upon them by their dusky friends 
for a handful of glass beads or an almost 
valueless piece of ironware. 

Such stories were not long in travelling. 
Before long, as Parkman affirms, the west- 
ern seaport merchants and adventurers 
began to turn their eyes towards America, 
not like the Spaniards, seeking treasures of 
silver and gold, but the more modest gains 
of codfish and train oil, beaver skins and 
marine ivory. And the enterprises of these 
merchant-adventurers make in many ways 
as interesting reading as the most romantic 
of tales, as is to be exemplified in the story 
of the French nobleman whose name stands 
at the head of this paragraph, in the story 
which Francis Parkman has made so 
familiar through his marvellous word 
painting. 

Lord Selkirk and the Red River Settle- 
ment. — Thomas Douglas, fifth Earl of 
Selkirk, was born in Scotland in the year 
1771. Early in the nineteenth century he 
turned his attention to British America 
as a suitable place of settlement for emi- 
grants from the Highlands of Scotland, and 
made a careful study of all the conditions 
relating to the new world. As early as 1802 
he asked for a grant of land in the region 
of the Red River, for the purpose of founding 



LORD SELKIRK AJ>7D CQLO^'TZATTO^'. 85 

a colony ; but as the territory he asked for 
was situated within the limits ceded by its 
charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, the 
Imperial autJiorities refused his request. 
He was however told that he might find in 
Prince Edward Island or in what is now the 
province of Ontario a tract that might suit 
his purpose as well. In 1803 he accordingly 
arranged for the carrying of three ship- 
loads of immigrants to Prince Edward 
Island, who settled in that part of the island 
at present known as Queen's County. In 
the course of the next few years he brought 
out about 4,000 settlers from Scotland. The 
results of these efforts not seeming to be 
satisfactory to him, he afterwards attempted 
to open up certain sections of Upper Canada, 
and founded the Baldoon Settlement in 
Kent county. These attempts were not 
attended with success. Lord Selkirk, during 
his visits to the country, became familiar 
with the workings of the great fur-trading 
companies, the Hudson's Bay Company and 
the North-west Company, learning not only 
of the rivalry which existed between them, 
but becoming acquainted with the men who 
formed them and gaining an insight into 
the value and importance of the peltry 
trade. Never losing sight, however, of 
the idea of ^colonization, he seemed more 
than ever to regard the v^illey of the Red 
River as a most suitable place to establish 
the settlement he had in view. Finding 
that he could not get a grant of land in that 
region direct from the government, he 



86 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA, 

thought it might be possible to arrive at the 
desired end by acquiring a controlling in- 
terest in the Hudson's Bay Company. He 
cccord'ingly put forth another efrorrt, and 
in 1811 a tract comprising 116,000 square 
miles was ceded to him for the purpose of 
establishing a colony. This was not accom- 
plished without a great deal of opposition, 
inspired by the North-west Company and 
its friends. 

As soon as the grant was an assured fact, 
Selkirk immediately set to work to turn the 
tide of emigration from the Scottish High- 
lands in the direction of the region over 
which he had just obtained control. An 
expedition was soon under way, accom- 
panied by Captain Miles Macdonell who held 
a commission from Lord Selkirk and the 
Hudson's Bay Company as first governor of 
the newly founded colony. This expedition 
left Stornoway on the 26th of July, 1811, but 
did not arrive at York Factory until the 24th 
of September. As the season was too far 
advanced to think of traversing the seven 
hundred miles necessary to reach their 
destination, the winter was passed in the 
vicinity of York Factory. This occasioned 
much suffering and privation to the poor 
settlers. The following summer the Red 
River valley was reached, where the 
intending colonists were harassed in many 
ways by the agents of the North-west Com- 
pany. At the approach of winter, refuge was 
sought at Pembina, where there was a 
Hudson's Bay post ; and in the following 



BLOODSHED IN THE NORTH-AVEST. 87 

spring tlie undaunted settlers returned to 
their prospective lionies and set about their 
task of cultivating the soil. At this time 
they established Fort Douglas as a centre. 
The next winter was likewise spent at Pem- 
bina, the population having, during the 
preceding spring, been increased by a second 
migration consisting for the most part of 
Irish peasants, who after a winter of untold 
privation also reached the Red River. 

It was at this time that the persistent 
attacks of the North-west Company on the 
young colony began. This corporation and 
its supporters had always looked upon 
Selkirk's colonizing schemes as not alto- 
gether disinterested, and seemed to regard 
them as an attempt to interfere with their 
trade. These attacks, and the quarrels they 
led to, seriously hindered the growth of the 
settlement, especially as inducements were 
offered to the new colonists to abandon their 
homes. The strife went so far as to lead 
to the killing of Governor Semple of the 
Hudson's Bay Company in a hand to hand 
battle which took place during the summer 
of 1816. In the meantime attempts were 
being made to combine the two rival com- 
panies ; though Lord Selkirk's offers in this 
direction were at first rejected. 

Hearing of the attacks made upon his 
colony by the agents of the North-west 
Company, Selkirk, being in Canada, began 
a counter movement against their forts and 
posts, and, with a hurriedly enlisted force, 
seized Fort William and the posts at Fond 



88 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OP CANADA. 

(Ill Lae, Michipicoten and Rainy Lake, with 
their stores consisting largely of valu- 
able furs. Pushing on to the Red River, 
his little army re-took Fort Douglas, which 
had been occupied by the North-west Com- 
pany, and the colonists were again estab- 
lished in the homesteads they had abandoned. 

Thereupon ensued a number of actions at 
law, in which Lord Selkirk was anything 
but successful. The governor-general sent 
to the scene of the trouble two commis- 
sioners to carry out the instructions of the 
Imperial authorities. While respecting the 
warrant of these commissioners, Lord 
Selkirk spent much time in arranging 
matters in such a way as to establish the 
colony more securely. The spiritual needs 
of the settlers and the education of their 
children having at length been provided for, 
the noble colonizer left for England and did 
not again visit the Red River. The relations 
between the two companies remained in an 
unsatisfactory condition so long as Selkirk 
retained control of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany's affairs. During all this time the 
settlers were compelled to endure hardships 
of every description, and for seven or eight 
years they must have been brought many 
times well nigh to despair. All credit is 
due to their steadfastness of purpose. 

After Lord Selkirk's death, which occurred 
on the 8th of April, 1820, the rival com- 
panies joined forces, the whole fur trade of 
the great north-west being carried on in 
the name of the Hudson's Bay Company. 



THE III'DSOJs^'S HAY COMPANY. 89 

From these beginnings sprang the present 
province of Manitoba, which was admitted 
into the Canadian confederation in 1870. 
Previous to this, in 1869, the rights of the 
Hudson's Bay monopoly had been purchased, 
and the region known as Rupert's Land and 
the North-West Territory formally trans- 
ferred to the Dominion Government. 

The Hudson's Bay Company. — In study- 
ing the history of Canada's development, 
the Hudson's Bay Company must of neces- 
sity attract attention. Founded in 1670, 
under the patronage of King Charles H. 
for the benefit of Prince Rupert, cousin 
to the king, and a few of his intimate 
friends, it had given to it powers and rights 
in the New World, which were almost un- 
limited. Its charter gave it control of what 
was called Rupert's Land, including the 
whole extent of country drained by the 
tributary streams of Hudson Bay and 
Hudson Strait. This meant a monopoly 
of all the trade at the time possible in this 
territory, although for over one hundred 
years the company did not carry its opera- 
tions inland to any extent. It then came 
into competition with the North-west Com- 
pany of Montreal, a competition which 
ended only with the joining of the two com- 
panies in 1821. By virtue of the powers 
granted to the two corporations, the new 
concern had entire control of all the country 
from Davis Strait to Mount St. Elias, and 
from the Arctic Ocean to the Californias. 



90 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

Twenty years later, however, their dominion 
was lessened as a result of the giving up of 
Oregon and other great tracts to the United 
States. This gradual restriction was also 
hastened by the organization and develop- 
ment which led to the birth of the Dominion 
of Canada. 

The deed which brought the Hudson's Bay 
Company into existence made its jurisdic- 
tion complete over the territory granted to 
it, with the power to engage in war with 
non-Christian peoples. The letters-patent 
also fixed the constitution of the company. 
The administration of its affairs is carried 
on by a governor and committee in England, 
assisted by a governor and council in 
Canada, and every shareholder has a vote 
for every share of stock he owns. The 
local officers in charge of the trading posts 
are called factors. The profits are divided 
among the owners and the various officers 
according to a fixed scale. Although engaged 
in a very general business, the company's 
chief source of revenue has always been the 
fur trade. At the same time it is interest- 
ing to note that a very great impetus was 
given to its commerce by the recent dis- 
coveries of gold in the Yukon district. 

Founding of Halifax. — In view of the 
importance of Chebucto Bay as a strategic 
point for the protection of British interests 
in America, the Board of Trade and Planta- 
tions, in 1749, at the request of the New 
England colonists, sent out about 3,000 



FOUNDING OF HALIFAX AND ST. JOIIX. 91 

immigrants under the care of the Hon. 
Edward Cornwallis (afterwards Lord Corn- 
wrjlis), first governor of Nova Scotia, to 
form the nucleus of their colonization plans. 
The majority of these settlers, who arrived 
at their new homes towards the end of June, 
were retired army men and their families. 
As soon as the settlement was an assured 
fact, it received the name it still bears, in 
honour of the Earl of Halifax, president of 
the Board under whose auspices the move- 
ment had been inaugurated. The population 
increased steadily, being added to by the 
arrival of Irish and German immigrants. 
Halifax from the first was one of the princi- 
pal military and naval stations on the 
Atlantic seaboard, and it is so still. Here, 
three years after the forming of the little 
colony, was published the first Canadian 
nev/spaper, the Halifax Gazette. As an 
indication of the value, from the very begin- 
ning, of Halifax as a basis for military 
operations, there is the fact that it was the 
rendezvous of the force which captured 
Louisbourg in 1758, and that it was used by 
Wolfe in the following year as the remote 
base for his operations against the French 
in Canada. 

Founding of St. John.— On the 24th day of 
June — an anniversary famous in Canada 
—in the year 1604, Champlain and DeMonts 
visited the inlet now known as St. John 
harbour ; but it was nearly sixty years 
later before any attempt at permanent set- 



92 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

tlement was made in this vicinity. About 
this time Charles de la Tour founded the 
fort named after him, on the east side of 
the harbour, and carried on an extensive 
trade with the Indians for a number of 
years. Becoming embroiled, however, with 
his rival, D'Aulnay Charnisay, of Port 
Royal, the latter attacked Fort La Tour in 
1643. La Tour escaped to New England and 
returned with a force sufficient to compel 
the besieger to retire, but in 1645, during 
the absence of La Tour, Charnisay made 
another attack on his enemy's stronghold. 
The gallant manner in which the heroic 
wife, Madame La Tour, defended her hus- 
band's property,, has been celebrated by poet 
and historian. The fort only succumbed to 
treachery from within, and the entire garri- 
son was hanged before the eyes of the noble 
woman who had done so much to secure its 
safety. Charnisay, after destroying Fort 
La Tour, built another on the other side of 
the harbour. Upon his death, however, in 
1650, La Tour, whose wife had died of a 
broken heart, after the capture of the fort, 
married his former enemy's widow and 
again assumed control of affairs. Although 
about the year 1762 a settlement was 
founded by a small body of men from New 
England, the actual founding of St. John 
dates from 1783, when 10,000 United Empire 
Loyalists arrived. The settlement, which 
arose from this migration, was called Parr 
Town, but shortly afterwards received the 
name by which the city is now known. 



rOET LA JOIE. 93 

Early Settlement of Prince Edward 
Island. — Although there is reason to believe 
that the island was discovered by Cabot in 
1497, and it is certain that it was visited by 
Cartier in the early part of the six- 
teenth century, no attempt was made to 
colonize its fertile lands for nearly two 
hundred years. Under the name of He i^t. 
Jean, it was included by the French as part 
of Acadia, and in 1663 was granted to a 
captain of the French navy, Sieur Doublet, 
who, in engaging in the fisheries, built a 
number of huts for his fishermen. The first 
permanent settlers, however, were Acadians 
who came over from the mainland in 1713, 
at the time of the cession of Nova Scotia 
to the English. The subsequent expulsion 
of the Acadians from Nova Scotia added 
considerably to the population. The island 
was ruled by the governor of Port la Joie, 
which was built opposite the site of 
Charlottetown, the present capital of the 
province. When Port la Joie was captured 
by the force sent out under Lord Rollo, the 
island passed into the hands of the English 
and was later formally ceded in 1763, when 
it was annexed for purposes of government 
to Nova Scotia, together with Cape Breton. 
Various schemes were proposed for the 
peopling of the island, which at the time of 
the cession had a population of not more 
than one hundred and fifty ; but it was not 
until 1767 that any definite steps in this 
direction were taken by the authorities, 
when the whole land surface was divided 



94 EAELIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

into sixty-seven lots or tov/nships of twenty 
tliousand acres each. These townships were 
apportioned by lot to about one hundred 
grantees, upon the condition that a certain 
number of suitable settlers should without 
delay be placed on the land apportioned to 
each. Very little effort was put forth by 
the grantees to fulfil the conditions imposed, 
and it was only when this system of tenure 
was modified by legislation, that the coloni- 
zation of the island advanced in anything 
like a satisfactory manner. Immigrants 
began to arrive in increasing numbers, and, 
as has already been mentioned, the Earl of 
Selkirk brought out about eight hundred 
Highlanders, who before long became pros- 
perous farmers. In 1770 the Island of St. 
John was made a separate province, and in 
1800 its name was changed to Prince Edward 
Island, in honour of the Duke of Kent, 
grandfather of King Edward VII. Six years 
after the four Canadian provinces had 
formed a confederation, the province entered 
the union. Charlottetown, the capital, is of 
historic interest in connection with the 
birth of the Dominion, as being the place 
where was held the conference which first 
gave a definite form to the idea of a 
Canadian federation. 

The United Em.pire Loyalists. — In speak- 
ing of the early settlement of Canada, 
mention must of necessity be made of the 
brave men and women who, at the time of 
the secession of the United States from their 



THE LOYALISTS. 95 

British connection, chose rather to seek 
new homes for themselves than change 
their allegiance. The United Empire Loyal- . 
ists, as they liked to be called and as they 
are known in history, were an important 
element in the moulding of Canada into the 
prosperous country it now is. At the close 
of the War of Independence, these sturdy 
settlers were deprived of their property, and 
even their lives were in some instances 
threatened ; and in view of this state of 
affairs, the British authorities came to their 
aid, by voting more than three million 
pounds sterling and furnishing ships to con- 
vey them and their families to Canada. At 
the same time arrangements were made to 
provide homes for them in the Maritime 
Provinces and in the fertile sections of what 
is now called the province of Ontario. 
Numbers of them also found their way to 
the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada. 
In this way the country secured as an addi- 
tion to its growing population many excel- 
lent settlers, whose descendants continue to 
be notable for their patriotism and loyalty 
to the Crown. Among the first of the Loyal- 
ists to cross the boundary line were those 
who, in 1778 and the following year, arrived 
at Machiche, on the shores of Lake St. 
Peter, at Chambly, St. John's, Point Claire 
and Beauce, and in the neighbourhood of 
Sorel. Others, in 1784, established them- 
selves at Cataraqui, in Upper Canada, and 
from there settled the region along the Bay 
of Quinte, while many, selecting the lands 



96 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

to the north of Lake Ontario, afterwards 
founded as a centre the settlement which is 
now the city of Toronto. The island of 
Cape Breton also received over six hundred 
families, while those who left their farmn 
in the New England states in 1783, were 
taken to the richer sections of Nova Scotia, 
settling eventually in the valley of the St. 
John river, at Shelburne and in Prince 
Edward Island. The new comers and their 
immediate descendants received grants of 
land from the government, and those in 
need were assisted in other ways. Their 
numbers increased rapidly, so that within 
ten years from the exodus, over 41,-500 
Loyalists had found peaceful homes in the 
land of their adoption. An Imperial order 
in council of November 9th, 1789, provided 
that " all Loyalists who had joined the 
cause of Great Britain before the treaty of 
separation of 1783, together with their 
children of both sexes, have the distinction 
of using the letters U.E. after their names, 
thus preserving the memory of their devo- 
tion to a United Empire." 

Sir William Alexander received from 
James I. a grant of the territory between 
the Bay of Fundy and the River St. Law- 
rence in 1614, — a concession which was 
confirmed by Charles I., who at the same 
time instituted the order of Baronets of 
Nova Scotia, to give eclat to the proposed 
settlement of the country. Sir William died 

in lfi40. 



SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 

The government of the Province of 
Ontario, in arranging for the decoration of 
the Legislative Buildings at Toronto, has 
decided to embellish the entrance hall and 
stairway with paintings illustrative of the 
history and development of Canada, Among 
the proposed subjects of these works of art 
are the following, which are of interest in 
connection with the early beginnings of the 
•country. 

Indians. — The early navigators so called 
the aborigines of the West Indies, under the 
delusion that they had reached the shores 
of Asia, but the name was afterwards 
applied to the natives of America in general. 
As a race the American Indian appears to 
be peculiar to this continent, having charac- 
teristics which are not found in the other 
groups of the human family. The Indian 
population of New Prance, including Acadia, 
in 1665 was estimated at about 17,500. 
There are now, according to the latest 
returns, nearly 100,000 in Canada. These 
are for the most part confined to the 
" reserves," and are looked upon as wards 
of the government, being under the direct 



98 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

care and supervision oi the Department of 
Indian Affairs at Ottawa. 

Northmen is the name given to the early- 
inhabitants of northern Europe, but more 
particularly to the ancient Scandinavians. 
An account of their visits to the New World 
has already been given. 

Cabot and the Discovery of" Cape Breton 
have been spoken of in preceding pages of 
this booklet. 

Cartier at Quebec. — The exploits of 
Cartier and his brave followers at Stadacona 
have also been described, 

Maisonneuve and the Founding- of 
Montreal. — The present metropolis of 
Canada was nothing but a trading post up 
to the year 1642, on the 18th of May of 
which year the town of Ville Murk' dc 
Moiitrml was formally founded by Paul de 
Chomedy, Sieur de Maisonneuve, acting for 
the Conipaguie de Montreal. The object of 
its establishment was religious rather than 
commercial, it being regarded as the founda- 
tion stone of a " Kingdom of God " which 
was to be instituted in New France, and 
Ville Marie was to be a centre for the 
Christianizing of America. In 1663, by free 
gift from the Company of Montreal, the 
Seminary of St. Sulpice became the owner 
of the island on which the city stands, and 
since that time has continued to possess the 



SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 99 

seigniorial rights. Maisonneuve's memory 
is preserved by a monument in the Place 
d'Armes, as well as in the name of a pros- 
perous suburban town lying to the east of 
the metropolis. 

Franklin on the Arctic Ocean. — Sir John 
Franklin was born in Lincolnshire, Eng- 
land, in 1786. He was a mariner from his 
earliest years, and saw service in the 
engagements of Copenhagen, Trafalgar and 
New Orleans. His fame, however, is more 
intimately connected with exploration in 
northern latitudes, he having commanded 
expeditions to the Arctic regions in 1818, 
1819 and 1825. He received the honour of 
knighthood in 1829, and was for a time 
governor of Tasmania. His last visit to the 
frozen north was in 1845, when he set out 
with two vessels, the Erchus and Terror. 
The unfortunate explorer was never seen 
again, though numerous expeditions were 
sent out to search for him. Many traces of 
the party were found, and, in 1859, McClin- 
tock discovered at Point Victory documents 
which seemed to show beyond a doubt that 
Franklin died near Lancaster Sound in 
June, 1847. Franklin's name is perpetuated 
in various ways on the maps of the North 
Polar regions, as in Franklin Bay and 
Franklin Channel. 

Founding- of Port Royal. — When De 
Monts and Champlain visited the beautiful 
bay now known as Annapolis Basin, in 1604, 



100 EAELTEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA, 

one of their companions, the Baron de 
Poutrincourt, being much impressed with 
the appearance of the surrounding country, 
decided to found a settlement on the shores 
of the inlet. Having secured a grant of 
land, he established a post and called it 
Port Royal. In 1605, those who survived 
the fate of the settlement at St. Croix 
removed to Port Royal, and in the following 
year the arrival of a number of colonists 
from France further increased the popula- 
tion. The site was, however, abandoned in 
1607, owing to the king having recalled the 
privileges he had granted to De Monts ; but 
three years later Poutrincourt re-established 
the settlement. In 1613 Captain Argall led 
a force from Virginia against it and des- 
troyed what had become a flourishing 
colony, an act which was inspired by the 
Jesuits, whose enmity Poutrincourt had 
incurred. For a long period Port Royal was 
the bone of contention between the powers 
striving for supremacy in the New 
World, and to this no doubt may be ascribed 
the fact that it ceased to have any import- 
ance save as a basis of warlike operations. 
The place was finally occupied by the 
English in 1710, when it received the name 
it now bears, Annapolis. 

Discovery of the Saskatchewan Valley 
by Verandrye. — Pierre Gautier de Varennes 
de la Verandrye was a native of Canada, 
being born at Three Rivers in November, 
1685. After serving in the French army, he 



HENNEPIN AT NIAGABA. 101 

later devoted himself to exploring the far 
west of his native country. In 1732 he 
crossed the Lake of the Woods, and the 
following year descended the Winnipeg 
river, building a fort on the lake of that 
name. He even penetrated as far west as 
the Rockies, and in 1749 ascended the Sas- 
katchewan river, establishing Fort Dauphin 
at what is now called The Forks. Veran- 
drye died at Quebec in December, 1749. 

McKenzie's Discovery of the Pacific has 
been referred to in speaking of the work 
done by that daring explorer. 

Hennepin at Niagara Falls. — Louis Hen- 
nepin, known in history as Father Hennepin, 
a Franciscan missionary, was born in 
Flanders in 1640, and came to Canada in 
1675. After his arrival he became greatly 
interested in the exploration of the un- 
known regions of what he describes as iin 
ires grand pays. To him is given the credit 
of discovering the famous cataract on 
Niagara river, in 1678, and he was later 
associated with LaSalle in his expeditions 
to the great lakes and the Mississippi 
river. His works dealing with his discover- 
ies are of great interest to students of 
history. He died in the year 1706 at 
Utrecht. 

Founding of Fort Frontenac. — This fort 
was established by Count Frontenac, gov- 
ernor of New France, in 1683, at the point 



102 EAKLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

where the St. Lawrence river issues from 
Lake Ontario, and LaSalle was placed in 
charge of it. Not long after it was built, 
the Iroquois destroyed' it, hut it was restored 
by Frontenac in 1695. On the occupation of 
that section of the country by the United 
Empire Loyalists, the name of the settle- 
ment at the fort was changed to Kingston. 

Launch of the '^ Griffon." — The name of 
Rene Robert Cavalier de LaSalle is con- 
nected rather with the early history of the 
United States than with that of Canada, 
although he was associated with Frontenac 
in his efforts to strengthen and develop New 
France. Having visited the great lakes 
and established Fort Niagara, he built a 
vessel intended for the navigation of these 
waters. The craft, which has been spoken 
of as the first built in Upper Canada, was 
launched in the waters of Lake Erie in 1679, 
and was called the " Griffon." The vessel 
was most unfortunate, however. On her 
first voyage she sailed through lakes Erie 
and Huron and reached Lake Michigan, but 
in returning was wrecked before she 
reached the Niagara river, to the loss of her 
valuable cargo of furs. 

The North-west Company at Fort 
William. — This great fur-trading enter- 
prise has been referred to in connection 
with the Hudson's Bay Company. Fort 
William, from a mere trading post, has 
become a flourishing town and is now 



GLENGAKRY SETTLEMENT. 103 

largely engaged in the handling of grain, 
being admirably situated on the western 
shore of Lake Superior. 

Founding' of Fort Eouille. — This was a 
small trading post established on the north- 
ern shore of Lake Ontario by the French, 
in 1749, during the administration of de La 
Galissoniere, It afterwards became known 
as York, and eventually received the name 
of Toronto, which it now bears. 

French Settlement on the Detroit River. 

— The site of the present city of Detroit was 
first visited by the French in 1610, although 
the first permanent settlement was not made 
until 1701, when Fort Ponchartrain was 
established, with Sieur de la Motte Cadillac 
as governor. In 1763 it came under British 
dominion, and afterwards under that of the 
United States, in 1787. 

Hig-hland Settlement at Glengarry. — 
What is now the county of Glengarry, in 
the province of Ontario, was first settled by 
United Empire Loyalists, whose migrations 
are spoken of elsewhere. Those who sought 
refuge from oppression on the virgin soil 
of the most easterly corner of Upper Canada, 
on the shores of Lake St. Francis, were for 
the most part natives of the Higlilands of 
Scotland, and not long after their establish- 
ment on their Glengarry homesteads, their 
numbers were added to by the arrival of a 
body of Scotch immigrants who came out 



104 EARLIEST BEGINNINGS OF CANADA. 

under the care of Bishop Macdonnell. 
Among the early settlers of the county were 
many military men, and Glengarry has pro- 
duced a race of soldiers, whose deeds of 
valour, during the war of 1812, a:nd later, 
in the troublous times of 1837-38, have ever 
been the pride of their compatriots. 



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